Jules Verne predicted cars would run on air. The Air Car is making that a reality. The car is powered by compressed air which certainly seems like an interesting idea. Air car ready for production:
Refueling is simple and will only take a few minutes. That is, if you live nearby a gas station with custom air compressor units. The cost of a fill up is approximately $2.00. If a driver doesn’t have access to a compressor station, they will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car’s built-in compressor to refill the tank in about 4 hours.
The car is said to have a driving range of 125 miles so by my calculation it would cost about 1.6 cents per mile. A car that gets 31 mpg would use 4 gallons to go 124 miles. At $3 a gallon for gas, the cost is $12 for fuel or about 9.7 cents per mile. I didn’t notice anything about maintenance costs. I don’t see any reason why the Air Car would cost more to maintain than a normal car.
The air car was named one of Time magazine’s best inventions of the 2007.
Five-seat concept car runs on air
An engineer has promised that within a year he will start selling a car that runs on compressed air, producing no emissions at all in town. The OneCAT will be a five-seater with a fibre-glass body, weighing just 350kg and could cost just over £2,500.
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Tata is the only big firm he’ll license to sell the car - and they are limited to India. For the rest of the world he hopes to persuade hundreds of investors to set up their own factories, making the car from 80% locally-sourced materials.
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“Imagine we will be able to save all those components traveling the world and all those transporters.” He wants each local factory to sell its own cars to cut out the middle man and he aims for 1% of global sales - about 680,000 per year. Terry Spall from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers says: “I really hope he succeeds. It is a really brave experiment in producing a sustainable car.”
Related: The History of Compressed Air Vehicles - Car Elevator (for parking) - Electric Automobiles - VW Phaeton manufacturing plant
February 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
This seems too good to be true. I hope it is true as if indeed it is, there is so much that will be nipped in the bud in terms of green house emissions. I, for one, do not drive, but if the ‘air car’ made an appearance, I’d be one of the first to buy it!
The model looks ok, but there would obviously need to be a range of models if some people are to be convinced to switch to air.
I really hope the air car becomes a reality. That would be AMAZING.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:18 am
Webcasts with more details on the compressed air car, and the engineering involved.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:59 am
As a consumer, there is still doubts and all of those in terms of new technologies as people as still not used to it. I think that the development of all of this new line of cars is still not finished, a few more years maybe and a few more before people are gonna be ready to adapt to them. This are my concerns with the new technology with cars.
1. cost
2. scarcity of resources - mechanics, parts, source of power-not as available as gas on gasoline stations
3. maintenance/repair