The race is on to build a leaner, meaner and much, much greener car. And now the first team to do it will win up to $25 million.

After years of criticism from greens and independent testing groups, the U.S. EPA announced on Friday that its rules for testing automobile fuel economy will finally be updated and revised. New standards should be in place for testing 2008 model year cars. It’s a move long opposed by the automobile industry, since the revisions could decrease mile-per-gallon estimates for new vehicles by as much as 10 percent.