Air-powered Car?

World's First Air-Powered Car: Zero Emissions by Next Summer

This six-seater tax, which should be available in India next year, is powered entirely by a tank filled with compressed air.

By Matt Sullivan

India’s largest automaker is set to start producing the world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI, uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008.

Barring any last-minute design changes on the way to production, the Air Car should be surprisingly practical. The $12,700 CityCAT, one of a handful of planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units; MDI says it should cost around $2 to fill the car’s carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi. Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car’s built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours.

Of course, the Air Car will likely never hit American shores, especially considering its all-glue construction. But that doesn’t mean the major automakers can write it off as a bizarre Indian experiment — MDI has signed deals to bring its design to 12 more countries, including Germany, Israel and South Africa.

[Source: Popular Mechanics]

Amazing - 1,562 miles on s single Prius tank!

(originally posted on PriusChat):

Kazu Tochigi achieved 1,562 miles/tank (2,513 km). The computer mileage was 104.2 mpg (44.3 km/L).

Even with the larger tank in the Japanese Prius, this is still an amazing feat.


As noted on PriusChat, this would be the equivalent of going from NYC to Dallas, on a single tank of gas!

--- Oren

More on Toyota's Prius plug-in delays

Toyota downplays value of plug-in cars

Sharon Terlep / The Detroit News

TRAVERSE CITY -- Plug-in electric cars aren't likely the panacea they're being made out to be by a public eager for alternatives to the traditional gasoline engine, a Toyota Motor Co. engineer said on Friday.

A number of serious hurdles stand between current technology and the reality of getting plug-ins on the road, Justin Ward, an engineer with Toyota's Advanced Technology Vehicles, said to an industry gathering at the annual Management Briefing Seminars. Even if the vehicles do make it to market, he said, data shows a battery-powered plug-in may be no more efficient in reducing carbon dioxide emissions than the gas-electric hybrids on the road today.

Ward's comments come amid reports that Toyota is delaying its next-generation electric car because of safety concerns, which Toyota didn't confirm. And they stood in contrast to one of General Motors Corp.'s biggest mantras of late: that plug-ins are coming soon and the vehicles will significantly reduce auto-related pollution and U.S. fuel consumption.

"Everyone wants these benefits now. But as with any type of prototype activity, there are challenges and the challenges are real," Ward said.

GM and Toyota are racing to be first to market with a vehicle that would use a powerful lithium-ion battery. Both companies are focusing on a number of different options, which include plug-in cars that can recharge batteries via a wall outlet and hybrids that mate battery power and gasoline engine.