The birth of Wikispeed can be traced back to the 2008 Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize competition for the development of energy-efficient cars, which captured the attention of Joe Justice, a Seattle-based software consultant. What set Justice apart from the other participants in the competition was his strategy and his resolve to apply open source software development methods to car manufacturing. In the beginning, he was alone. But as he announced his plan on the Internet, volunteers came to help and in three months he had a team of forty-four volunteers and a functioning prototype (Denning 2012; Halverson 2011). Now the project is jointly developed by more than 150 volunteers distributed around the world, who aim to deliver Wikispeed as a complete car for $17,995 USD and as a kit for $10,000 USD (Wikispeed 2012).
