Teams from Virginia, North Carolina and Winterthur, Switzerland, with roots in the world of auto racing have won the first Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize, the $10 million competition aimed at advancing the technology for more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The competition, which began in 2007 with 136 vehicles from 111 teams, required that the vehicles achieve 100 miles per gallon or the energy equivalent. While two of winning vehicles reached that goal with electric power plants, the top winner did it with an internal combustion engine.

“When you have a background in racing, you focus on what you’re trying to achieve, and you know that you have a given time period to do it,” said Oliver Kuttner, the founder and chief executive of Edison2 of Lynchburg, Va., which won the $5 million top prize with its Edison2 Very Light Car. The company’s fabricators and mechanics have worked for teams participating in auto races like the 24 Hours of Daytona and Indianapolis 500.

The other winners of $2.5 million each were the Wave II, a battery-electric vehicle from Li-Ion Motors of Mooresville, N.C., in the heart of Nascar country, and the E-Tracer, a battery-electric, enclosed motorcyclelike vehicle from Peraves of Winterthur, which is near Zurich.