US Gov. Builds “Green Racing” Features into GT5 Prologue

Programmers from the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Society of Automotive Engineers have found an interesting way to build “green racing” features on top of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue. Apparently, the system works by sitting between the steering wheel and the PlayStation 3, watching and recording controller inputs.

The software currently simulates a Chevrolet Corvette with a hybrid engine system running on ethanol, and calculates the player’s overall “Michelin Green X Challenge” score in real-time based on braking and acceleration. Big names such as Joerg Bergmeister and Gunnar Jeannette have already tested the system, but you can give it a try yourself “at all remaining U.S. rounds of the series, at Lime Rock, Mid-Ohio, Road America and Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.” They’re looking to expand the system to other makes and models, and are looking to implement  “multiplayer down the road”. Read up on all the details at Michelin’s company blog, and please let me know if any of you are able to try out one of these systems for yourself!

Comments (95)

  1. GTPILIPINAS

    What about the Kazunori Yamauchi interview about hybrids?

    Maybe GT5 will be President Obama’s favorite video game when he either tries it out at a local video game store, a gaming convention, and/or buy and play with it.

  2. Corey

    I don’t care about driving ‘green’, I just want to put the pedal to the metal and hear that V8 roar!

  3. George Washington

    I’m sorry, but I read the whole article and I still have no frickin clue what this is really about.

  4. the big red dogg

    Great! Now PD is going to add another 2 months into development of GT5 so they can impliment a “Green” racing mode where you get time penalties for mashing the gas to hard or pitting for new tires.

  5. 01GTP

    I was at Lime Rock and tried this out.
    It serves it’s purpose and that is to educate people about using different fuels.
    If you don’t want to be educated, oh well, your loss.
    It is in no way challenging for the avid virtual racer, but easy for those who are not.
    I do like the fact that our government is helping get out the information in this fashion.

    Hint to those who try it:
    Draft as much as possible
    Use the brakes to increase saved fuel
    Don’t listen to the gentlemen telling you to boost, don’t boost (it uses fuel and you can win the race without it)

  6. cuco33

    You know what pisses me off beyond all belief?!?! I was at Lime Rock for ALMS this past Saturday… and had I known this was there, I would have stopped by!!!!!!!!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! Ah well.. Guess the article is a week minimum late as ALMS – Lime Rock just happened.

    1. kai

      wow shut the fuck up. This has nothing to do with hippie shit. At least some people out there care enough about our Earth and are trying to keep it clean. You should do something with your life instead of eating cake and drinking coke and driving your SUV to the store a block away to get more soda and candy. Scum of the earth.

    2. Tenacious D

      Oh dear God…

      There have been enough scandals in the green movement over fudging or even fabricating data to prove their points to make you guys useless on this issue.

      I find it laughable that Al Gore, “Captain Planet” himself who warned us that the coasts of the world will be underwater in a few years, bought a $9 million mansion which he said would be under water shortly. Hypocrisy much…

      Look, if you guys want to recycle and hug trees and jog to work and sell your central air, that’s fine. But I’m getting sick of people legislating my life to death because they have this misconception that we’re just one case of bad breath away from a dead planet.

      If you really cared so much, all you liberals would stop breathing. There’s no greater source of hot air in the universe.

    3. FlareKR

      Progressive Left-Wing Tactics 101:
      By Ha and Kai
      When proven wrong, call everybody else stupid. I mean, you liberals are smart people from Harvard with all the knowledge of the world *cough*yourselves*cough*, right? I mean, what a fail capitalism is that has only made America so powerful, right?
      Please go back to eating Organic Socialist Horsesh*t, if you haven’t eaten enough already.

    4. BWX

      Yeah I love all the liberal loons’ comebacks. They call anyone who doesn’t jump on the gullible bandwagon “morons” or “idiots”- they have no REAL response becuase they’ve melted their brains watching MSNBC.

    5. Ha

      Could you kindly point out where anyone was “proven wrong”?
      When someone says something as stupid as “If you really cared so much, all you liberals would stop breathing” whilst denying climate change do they really deserve a serious response?
      If you stopped watching fox news for 5 minutes and actually went and read the scientific literature and made your own mind up on the subject then I might value what you have to say!

  7. twinspark24

    Now they have to put fake bullets in Killzone 2 and let you check out how many lives you can spare if you were a mercenary :D

    1. FlareKR

      They already have something like that – Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker. Oh well, it’s always fun sending people up on balloon rides.

  8. FlareKR

    First the government takes control of your taxes.
    Then your health care.
    When they have control of your games, you know it’s too late.

    1. Ha

      I love that you Americans can’t see the benefit of a National Health Service, I have spent years defending your national intelligence but now I give up; you honestly are as retarded as you appear to the outside world!

    2. FlareKR

      So why is Europe going back to un-nationalized health care. All you socialists there thought it was all so wonderful, and you’ll all be prancing your Alps and Channels with wonderful health care, yet it fails miserably, and the whole continent is in debt. Meanwhile, we here are reverting to your garbage, losing jobs, money, from an administration who has actually achieved to spend more then the last one. So if we are so “retardzedz”, please explain why Britain, with oh-so-wonderful-health care is decentralizing it? Maybe because the benefits uhhh, lez me seyz, IMA retrdz aMercain idiotsz – BECAUSE IT SUCKS, PERIOD!

    3. Ha

      A decent health service should be a basic human right and should not be linked to how much you earn, no matter which way you look at it you can’t argue with that.
      The NHS has it’s problems yes, but a system there to provide care works better than a system based around creating maximum profit for insurance companies!
      Your previous/current health care system is one of the most expensive and yet consistently under-performs when compared to the universal health care services provided in most developed nations (including Britain and especially France, since you mentioned the Alps.).
      You really don’t want to start talking about debt, you must know how badly your previous republican governments have screwed your countries financial well-being?

      P.S. You seem to have a problem with your Z key nowhere in my post did I write “retardzedz” yet you quote it?!?

  9. GTPILIPINAS

    Anyone remember the interview of Kaz Yamauchi about hybrids? What about the Pescarolo hybrid Le Mans car in GTPSP? Anyone remember both?

    1. FlareKR

      I love that car, use the rubber band trick on the R button to accelerate around the Test Track, and bam , easy money. Don’t even have to do a thing :D

    1. Kiko

      I’d be psyched if it weren’t from OPM. Next issue, they’re probably going to say “OOPS sorry we were wrong,” a la Indy Cars.

  10. FORZA OWNS

    i have to agree with nikojumic because considering that forza is going to take much less than five years, it can make a decent game.

    gt5 however took 5 years (and counting) to make this and still dont have features that forza have. its a good game but they could have done a lot more.

  11. Tim

    In the words of ted from scrubs

    “Damm you why!”.

    Cant we polute something in piece without being being bombarded with the words it’s not green ! this is a game for heavens sake.

    1. TheMainVR4

      Horn is very important, with the hi/low beams it will be very fun to torment the slower cars infront of me…..muah muahahah

      Im still rooting for turn signals.

    2. Andrew

      (This is my first post so don’t know if I put it in the right place… don’t hate me if I did it wrong)

      @TheMainVR4
      I agree so much! I have been looking for games with turn signals for ages. However, the only one I have seen which has them is Burnout Paradise. Though there is a small catch… you don’t control them yourself :(

    3. FlareKR

      Please not the turn signals or I’ll get obsessed with them as I already am with them in real life. It’s just a lane switch Flare, don’t- resist- must- resist – grr – CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK, VROOOOM!

    1. TokyoDrift

      Oh wow, woooohoooo a horn… I guess that will have been from a premium car, cos’ there is no way a ‘tard car will have such an amazing feature.

  12. JimInPT

    Oh, barf.

    I see our greedy, corrupt Big Stupid Government is still insisting on burning our food sources instead of getting the hell out of the way of real scientists and engineers. Anybody priced ears of corn for summer picnics the last couple of years?

    Typical idiocy from people who could only get government “jobs”.

    1. tyl0r_r

      All that from a little meter you hook up to a game that compares your progress to tech which pollutes less?

      …Really?

    2. JimInPT

      Yep. Context, man, context.

      US Government wasting tax dollars promoting burning more corn as ethanol instead of its primary use as food. They steal our money to do it, subsidize the farmers, force its use and cause consumer prices to get jacked up as a result.

      All in the name of politically-correct, greenweenie hype, blather and nonsense, promoted by people who couldn’t get a real job doing something useful to save their asses.

      Just sayin’ …….

    3. VeeSee

      @ JimInPT
      I totally agree with you. This Green jibberish is more like a problem… just saying. Im not going to argue more cos of my moderate english :D

    4. tyl0r_r

      hey jim, when you want to talk about it while citing facts rather then your (shallow) subjective impressions of people and their capabilities, we’ll talk. ’till then, my but you do seem silly.

  13. RAugie

    I will also be at Road Atlanta, taking a few laps around the real track and, hopefully, road atlanta will be in gt5 as well.

  14. Sam__ NY

    I just hate it when eco-heads and racing come together. I don’t care if you “go green”, your not gonna change the world anyway. But when you put “green” and racing together, it just doesn’t work. Sure it lets teams experiment with new tech, but it also limits them as well.

    I liked it when you could drive 24 hour races without being told how environmentally friendly your being with their stupid Green X Challenge. And to put this tech into a video game is just ridiculous.

    1. tyl0r_r

      and industrialists like the good old days of the industrial revolution, but those business practices don’t fly anymore.

      evolve or die. racing too. get over yourself.

    1. JimInPT

      Oh yeah, sounds like a hoot.

      Me, I’m looking forward to seeing how many spins I can get out of an airborne Pious after I get under it with my Ford GT (getting negative miles/gallon at full throttle, if I do it right).

  15. gta_bird

    FYI to the people who are and will be confused. Watch the whole video and it explains itself at the end.
    I was one of the dummys myself who said “Whats supposed to be going on here?”.

  16. HenGTX

    Link to Michelin doesn’t work on my PS3. But what are they doing with the readings? what’s the purpose of this?

    1. cuco33

      You missed a good race. Saw about 6 accidents and the Porsche RS Spyder and Acura ARX were fighting till the end.

  17. Trevor Longman

    I was there at Lime Rock and I gave it a go. Don’t make a big fuss about it it’s just a copy of prologue with an extra tv strapped to the top.

  18. daus26

    Interesting. So if the car had nos and we used it, I assume it’ll lower our score for example, right?

    I’ve actually sort of done this “green” game thing in real life. I always try to conserve as much gas as possible when I’m driving, by things like avoiding hard braking, constant/gradual acceleration, AC usage etc.

    1. funrun

      Actually contrary to belief, the most fuel efficient way to accelerate is to go WOT but change gears as quick as possible. I forget the technical reasoning behind this but I remember reading this a while back, but it’s proven that this saves fuel compared to the slow gradual acceleration…if you have an automatic I think it’s almost impossible to do this as it won’t change gears quick when WOT.

  19. TokyoDrift

    Wow, news is getting really desperate around here…

    I know, let’s all drive for as many laps as we can on a tank of fuel in GT5…yeah, real exciting… :o/

    1. tyl0r_r

      you’ve been here long enough to realize that jordan posts everything he can find GT related on the front page. you still complain. why is this?

    2. BLADErunner80

      Pretty damn useful if your doing any kind of endurance racing and want to do as few fuel stops as possible.

      Even F1 drivers are having to drive in a “fuel save period” in races this season because they have to carry fuel for the whole race as re-fuelling is gone. To save weight at the start when the car is heavy with fuel they underfill the tank so they can’t go flat out the whole race so drivers who can best save fuel can have a shorter fuel save period and more time flat out.

    3. organdonor

      I’m not bitching I just made the comment on how whenever something gets presented you always have something negative to say and complain. makes me wonder why you even come here, let alone take the time to comment on ‘worthless’ information.

    4. ThatGuy

      TokyoDrift: “The worst thing you can do is bitch about people bitching”

      Really? Or are you just deflecting with that silly statement?

      Obviously there’s not a lot of GT5 news currently… everyone gets that. So complaining about the obvious seems kinda pointless.
      And the awesome part is that if you KNOW there’s not much exciting news, you don’t have to visit the sites that post little non-exciting tidbits.

    5. tyl0r_r

      that’s not true. you’re blaming me and others for calling you out on posting nothing but crap and complaints and somehow trying to make it look like it’s our fault. the worst thing you can do isn’t complain about complainers, it’s to not learn a damn thing when the people around politely try to tell you you’re being a dick. (my polite attempt was the first time.)

    6. BWX

      hey TokyoDrift, I’m not going to “bitch about people bitching”, I’m just going to tell you to STFU and GTFO if you don’t like the news on this site.

  20. John Marine

    It seems very interesting. Not that I know about this deal to any extreme, it is pretty cool this is being added (or at least experimented). It shows even more about the importance of Gran Turismo to manufacturers represented. Love or loathe GT, at least appreciate something like this. I’m not excited about this or something, but it’s interesting to see something like this.

  21. CanAm1968

    I will be able to test this because I am already going to Road Atlanta to see the Petit Lemans. This green thing is intriguing and I wonder how many “green” cars will make it in GT5. I actually wish they would include Road Atlanta in the game. I think they could do an even better job than Forza.

  22. Ferrari

    Kinda confused on this

    they’re testing out green cars on GT5 to see if they would actually work in real life?

    1. P37Mac

      Nah, they’re just demonstrating the energy that can be saved by utilising hybrid power, and that hybrids don’t have to be slow to acheive that saving. GTP is just the platform they chose to use to give access to the public.

    1. Marcus

      Sorry made a mistake porsche is not in gt5 nor does the translation mention new f1 cars just the appearance of red bull in the trailer. On the other hand the lexus lf-a will be in the game according to the supercar section

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