Shell GameChanger and Local Motors Announce Grand Prize Winner of D.R.I.V.E.N., a Competition to Design for Future Mobility

PHOENIX, March 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- In January 2012, Local Motors, working with Shell's GameChanger program announced DRIVEN - Design of Relevant and Innovative Vehicles for Energy Needs – a vehicle design competition seeking innovative transportation solutions to address mobility challenges on Local Motors' The Forge (forge.local-motors.com), an online, open co-creation forum. This challenge focused on five world cities including Amsterdam, Bangalore, Basra, Houston and Sao Paulo. 

Designers from around the globe were invited to design a future mobility vehicle for at least one of the cities and the submitted entries needed to incorporate locally available energy sources and construction materials as well as solve a local and relevant social issue.   The outcome of this challenge includes over 170 unique concepts; all designed with the intention of meeting current and future transportation needs. According to Local Motors' CEO, John B. Rogers, Jr., "Shell GameChanger and D.R.I.V.E.N. has been an enormous inspiration to Local Motors' community of designers and engineers.  This community thrives on complex challenges, and designing vehicles for future mobility with local energy and material resources fit the bill."

Members of the Local Motors online community voted to choose the top design per city, each of which earned 2,000USD and LM gear. From these top five designs chosen by the LM community, a panel of Shell judges then chose the Grand Prize Winner, Paulo Encarnacao's "LM Urban Pod" designed for Sao Paulo, awarding an additional 5,000USD.  GameChanger will build the "LM Urban Pod" into a 1/4 scale model and show it around the globe. 

Mandar Apte, Project Manager and GameChanger at Shell International Exploration and Production Inc. considers this project a great success.  Mandar stated, "GameChanger is invigorated and excited to explore the future potential of using the wisdom of the crowds and co-creation to solving world issues. All the designs of vehicle concepts submitted during the competition represent high creativity and talent, especially those that got the top community-voted vehicles for each region. The Sao Paolo 'LM Urban Pod' design concept by Paulo Encarnacao is a very novel yet practical and doable solution to address the local transportation challenges. Our intention is to build a 1/4 scale model of this concept. We appreciate the efforts of all the community members in participating in DRIVEN. It represents a great example of how to leverage the wisdom of the crowd and co-create solutions to address the energy challenges we face."

Here are the winners:
Grand Prize Winner, LM Urban Pod for Sao Paulo by Paulo Encarnacao
http://forge.local-motors.com/pages/project.php?cg=8729
Prize: 7,000USD + LM Gear + Opportunity to see design made into 1/4th scale model. 

Winners Per City

Amsterdam – "Extensor" by Marc Senger of Boston, USA  
http://forge.local-motors.com/pages/project.php?cg=8773
Prize: 2000USD + LM Gear

Bangalore – "Little Fish" by Marcello of Italy
http://forge.local-motors.com/pages/project.php?cg=8687
Prize:  2000USD + LM Gear

Basra – "TUB Transport Urban Basra" by designer David Leetz of Denton, Texas USA
http://forge.local-motors.com/pages/project.php?cg=8663
Prize: 2000USD + LM Gear

Houston – "Houston Bvora" by Stoianov Sebastian Mihai of Romania
http://forge.local-motors.com/pages/project.php?cg=8742
Prize:  2000USD + LM Gear

Sao Paulo - GRAND PRIZE WINNER – "LM Urban Pod" by Paulo Encarnacao of Portugal
http://forge.local-motors.com/pages/project.php?cg=8729
Prize: 7,000USD + LM Gear + Opportunity to see design made into 1/4th scale model. 

About Shell GameChanger

We believe some people cannot stop dreaming up ideas to make things better. However, dreaming is not enough to show an idea will work. For lack of money, a few connections, and perhaps a bit of guidance, many great ideas never get off the ground. This is where Shell GameChanger can help. If you have a creative mind and believe that your innovative ideas can transform the energy industry, perhaps you should be speaking to us. We invest in novel, early-stage ideas and bring them to "proof of concept" and, if successful, work with you for further development and commercial deployment. We are looking for innovative ideas to more affordably, efficiently and cleanly develop and use today's energy resources, or unlock the clean energy resources of tomorrow. Submit your ideas on www.shell.com/gamechanger.

About Local Motors

Local Motors is a new American car company setting an exciting and sustainable course to design, manufacture, and sell cars for niche markets. Local Motors co-creates new purposeful vehicles and components with its community of 14,000 designers, engineers and enthusiasts using open source principals.  Anyone can join the Local Motors community at www.local-motors.com to assist in designing and engineering of new, innovative vehicles, and anyone can help choose which vehicles are produced and available for purchase.  Local Motors shares all vehicle data to allow easier modification, home builds or creation of new components to fit existing vehicles.  Local Motors does not sell kits. Customers get to build their co-created vehicle at the Local-Motors Micro Factory with professional assistance.  The build is completed during 2, 3-day build weekends. Local Motors has been recognized for its groundbreaking approach to automotive development, appearing in articles in Popular Science, Wired and Popular Mechanics and was featured on the Discovery Channel.

Now any individual, company or organization can co-create vehicles, parts and accessories through Local Motors' co-creative challenge-based platform called "The Forge"; email [email protected] for details.

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SOURCE Shell