Hybrids, move over. Here comes the 106 mpg Air Car.

Introducing the Air Car. Hopefully you've heard about it by now. The creation of its engine, designed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre, rocked automobile circles when it revealed that it uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. People marveled at the potential.

Then Tata Motors, India's largest car company, announced that they would produce cars for India with this engine by August of 2008 at the reasonable price at $12,700 each. People again got excited about the idea of filling up at a gas station with compressed air instead of fuel, but also assumed it would be decades before we saw these in the US, since Tata Motors was essentially producing cars that were glued together.

But a company called Zero Pollution Motors has stepped in. They are aggressively pushing for the Air Car to be available in the US by late 2009. A new version of the engine has been created that uses a small gas tank as well over speeds of 35 mph.

The new engine pushes the top speed of the car to 96 mph and gives it a range of just less than 1000 miles. On an 8 gallon tank of gas, that makes it a 106 mph car. The body of the car has been overhauled to US standards and is undergoing crash tests in Europe.

The initial version of the car is also slated to be a six-seater, making it family-sized, and fairly unique in the market. Oil changes will only be necessary every 31,000 miles. It will cost around $17,800.

It all sounds too good to be true. Some back of the envelope math shows that if we could instantaneously replace half of the cars on the road with air powered cars, US greenhouse gas emissions would go down by 23% overnight. I can't wait to see what 2009 brings.

You can read more about the Air Car at Zero Pollution Motors.

Comments

[Meghan N.]

Wow, I had never considered buying a non-used car until now. I do wonder what goes into creating the compressed air, what fuel is used in the process. The company's website has a video that talks about the car eventually self-charging its air tanks... so excited to see this vehicle come to our country!

[Susan]

This car would be the best choice for the planet, because it would not have any pollution. Or CO2 or O2 - even if this emission would be interesting. But do you really believe that it would be on the market in the next year? Just see USA, you are from there if I understand. If they would want to low down the need of oil, they would produce cars whit consumption less than 4l on 100km as it is in Europe by diesel cars. I only heard that you have there more than 10l/100km and that is horribly much.
I think that oil companies would make pressure on the government and they would not allow the car by giving stupid requirements... :-( And maybe nowhere in the world... Only after there would be no oil or the price for oil would be enormously high. And even maybe not after that too. Maybe then will come companies with H production to hydrogen cars... but nobody knows...
(sorry, I hope you understand my English...)