Local Motors, one of our favourite automotive companies, for the simple reason that the designs are crowd sourced and not dictated by the manufacturer, will be announcing a new competition. A sneak preview has been put up at this link.
Local Motors, in association with Shell Oil Company’s GameChanger program will announce its next vehicle design competition titled ‘DRIVEN of Relevant and Innovative Vehicles for Energy Needs (DRIVEN)’.
The challenge is to design a vehicle that could be produced in the next five to ten years for one of five cities specified. The cities include Sao Paulo, Basra, Bangalore, Amsterdam or Houston.
Local Motors has said that the vehicle should use locally sourced energy and materials, and should help address social challenges that each of these locations are currently facing.
Local Motors (LM) is an automotive company that crowd sources design by hosting contests where the huge community of designers from world over participate by submitting their sketches, voting and deciding on the winner. These designs are then brought to life at one of their ‘micro-factories’ built in the location for which the car was designed, and then sold to residents from around the micro-factory. This methodology reduces the need for mass production and shipping costs.
Imagine, having a Local Motors micro-factory in Bangalore. It would do all that the numerous auto shows in the country have not done for the Indian youngster who is passionate about automobiles, which is, to inspire him/her to build a car/motorcycle.
We have had numerous entries for previous LM contests from India. Chezhian Natarajan, our Featured Designer has participated in some of these contests.
More info
- January 17: Entries begin
- February 7: Submission deadline
- February 7: Voting begins
- February 14: Voting Ends
- February 21: Winners announced
Focus on Innovating Transportation in 5 Cities:
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Bangalor, India
- Basra, Iraq
- Houston, Texas
- Sao Paolo, Brazil
Anyone can join this challenge by submitting a design proposal and/or voting for a winner.
$15,000 in total prizes: 5 winners will be selected by the LM community from each of the 5 regions to receive $2,000. One grand prize winner will be selected by Shell from among these five regional winners to receive an additional $5,000.
For those of you who will be participating in the LM contest for the first time, here is a heads up.
The contest brief, which will be posted on January 17th, 2012 will contain design and engineering guidelines which have to be met.
The winner is selected by the community by a voting process, and we would advise you to stick to the engineering guidelines, but not let it ruin the aesthetic appeal of your design. Numerous times LM has asked contestants to submit only designs that can be produced, but wacky concepts have walked away with the prize. So make sure your design is stunning, and stick to the most important guidelines but do not let the rest ruin your design.
Make good use of the ‘Checkup’ process where you will receive feedback on your work in progress before actual submission. Since the feedback is from the very community that decides on the winner, there’s a good chance that the entry most approved on checkup will walk away with the prize.
If you intend to participate, and have a query, do drop us a comment here, we’ll try to have your question answered.
