Air powered vehicules may soon be available in the U.S, France, and India !

• Author: DigitalMind
• Filed under: Uncategorized
• Date: Aug 24,2008

MDI, (Motor Development International) , a France based company, has developed a motor that is powered mostly by compressed air.  I’ve written about the forkencycle (Electric DIY motorbike), I use a little electric Razor Scooter to get around when not going far, and today is the day to learn about air cars !

A compressed air car works along the same principles as a regular car.  Instead of using gas to make little explosions that move pistons up and down, they use compressed air. Because there’s no gas or fire within the engine, it doesn’t heat up ! When speeds of over 35 miles per hour are needed, they use some gasoline to create more compressed air to keep feeding the engine.  They say that the vehicules could do almost 850 miles on a single tank of air, and 8 gallons of gasoline. (the equivalent of about 105 miles per gallon, the prius only does 45 miles per gallon and it’s the highest MPG rated car so far!)

The compressed air tank could be filled up at a service station in under 3 minutes, or can be plugged into your electrical socket at home where the on board compressor will fill up the tank in about 4 hours.

One of the most important parts of designing this vehicule is that it remain as light weight as possible. As a result, most of the car is made with aluminum.  I can’t help but wonder if this will REALLY pass the strict safety tests in the U.S, and here in Canada. ZPM (Zero pollution motors) is currently the exclusive MDI distributor for the U.S, and is commited to having these cars available by 2009-2010. They claim it will pass all the regular safety regulations. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

ZPM’s Mission :

To bring zero pollution motoring at any speed, for any distance, to the largest number of motorists possible and, in doing so, significantly improve the quality of the air we breathe and reduce our collective carbon footprint.

This is a noble mission, TechieNATION hopes it will make it to production and wishes them the best of luck. (Let me know if you also want to add a solar powered system to the car that will power the compressor when driving with the sun shining:) )

The car will be sold for approximately $15,000 US Dollars.  If it performs as well as they say it does, and it is SAFE, then this is a great deal. I think that this is better than electric cars, because all service stations are already equipped with air compressors (Although they’ll probably need some modifications) , and gas is only used in the car to create more air so there are much less losses: A typical car engine loses lots of it’s power in the form of heat.

Checkout the video below about air cars !