WWU team is an X Prize finalist; luxury electric car line comes to former GM plant

X Prize finalists
The Automotive X Prize organizers have cut the list of competitors for the $10 million contest by half. A team from Western Washington University joins 42 other teams from 10 countries in the next round after passing a vehicle design phase. They now move to a performance and safety-testing phase, with the winner to be announced next September. The vehicles must be production-capable and exceed 100 mpg or the equivalent efficiency.

Fisker plant
Luxury electric vehicle startup Fisker Automotive will build its new Nina line of cars at a former General Motors assembly plant in Delaware. Fisker expects to create or support 2,000 factory jobs by 2014. The company says it will also build the second-generation Karma (shown) at the plant in 2016.

--Associated Press