The quest to engineer a radically new kind of car.When the X Prize Foundation announced that it would give $10 million to anyone who could build a safe, mass-producible car that could travel one hundred miles on the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas, the challenge attracted more than one hundred teams from all over the world--including dozens of amateurs. Many designed their cars entirely from scratch, rejecting decades of thinking about what a car should look like. Jason Fagone follows four of those teams from the build stage to the final race and beyond. The result is a gripping story of crazy collaboration, absurd risks, and poignant losses. In an old pole barn in central Illinois, childhood sweethearts hack together an electric-powered dreamboat, using scavenged parts, forging their own steel and burning through their life savings. In Virginia, an impassioned entrepreneur and his hand-picked squad of speed build a car so light that you can push it across the floor with your thumb. In West Philly, a group of disaffected high school students come into their own as they create a hybrid car with the engine of a Harley motorcycle. And in Southern California, the early favorite--a start-up backed by millions in venture capital--designs a car that looks like an alien egg. Ingenious is a joyride. Fagone takes us into the garages and the minds of the inventors, capturing the fractious yet beautiful process of engineering a bespoke machine.