The world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle is rolling towards the production line. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI, will be built by India’s largest automaker.
The Air Car uses compressed air to push its engineÂ’s pistons. It is anticipated that approximately 6000 Air Cars will be cruising the streets of India by 2008. If the manufacturers have no surprises up their exhaust pipes the car will be practical and reasonably priced. The CityCat model will clock out at 68 mph with a driving range of 125 miles.
Refueling is simple and will only take a few minutes. Just stop by any gas station equipped with custom air compressor units. The cost of a fill up is approximately $2.00. Drivers will also be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the carÂ’s built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours.
The streets of North America may never see the Air Car, though; it’s light-weight, glued-together fiberglass construction might not do so well in our crash tests. However, that does not mean the Air car is confined to the sub-continent. MDI has signed deals to bring its design to 12 more countries, including Germany, Israel and South Africa.
A variety of videos on this technology can be found on YouTube, or after the jump.
Via: Popular Mechanics