From the folks at TaTa motors, you know, the ones who bought Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford, have an interesting entry in to the alternative fuel car market: A car that runs on compressed air. The following is all copy and paste. Have fun. AMAZING AIR CAR FROM INDIA.......OF ALL PLACES.... This is the same company which a few months back invented a car that costs only $2500 new. BUT, it's not available in the USA. Why is it that a gasless vehicle that eliminates the reason to buy oil from foreign countries hasn't nipped the minds of US manufacturers? How bad can this be for anybody, anywhere in the world -- except for foreign oil? AMAZING AIR CAR! The Compressed Air Car, developed by Motor Development International (MDI) Founder Guy Negre, might be the best thing to happen to the motor engine, and people all over the world. The $12,700 CityCAT, one of the planned Air Car models, reaches 68 mph, goes for 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 u nits. MDI says it should cost only around $2 to fill the car up with 340 liters of air! The Air Car will be starting production soon, thanks to India's TATA Motors. Forget corn! That's a joke. There's fuel, user friendly, pocketbook friendly fuel! What can be better than air? Cool Concept 6-seater taxi should be available in India in 2008 Now if we will just DEMAND this technology in the USA, we can tell Saudi Arabia, Venezuela & dirty foreign oil to take a hike! I resent it, but can see why jobs are going to India & why we are importing people from India to do jobs that Americans CAN'T. But I can't see why we have the most unfriendly energy congress in US history, or why they waste time fussing & fighting while we suffer Read more about the reality of "Compressed Air Cars" - a knowledge base in many categories will enlighten you to the use and future probabilities of this amazing mode of transportation...
This is old news. And, like the Chevy Volt, it's a concept which is being touted, but is not actually available, even in India, where they claim it will be built. Once they build the thing, if they ever do, it will probably have much less range and much poorer performance than is now being claimed.
This has been discussed on PTS and generally agreed that the thermodynamics for the air powered car are not favorable. (i.e. you will lose a lot of the energy by compressing and decompressing the air). If you have a free source of compressed air, fine. Otherwise its an inefficient way to power an automobile.
