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There's no shortage of alternative fuels contending to augment or displace petrol in cars: ethanol, biodiesel, hydrogen, electric and more. To that mix you can now add compressed air. Euro car maker Motor Development International (MDI) is working on a line of cars that don't go fast, but are expected to be easy on the atmosphere.
The gent pictured above is Guy Negre, founder and president of MDI, and that car is the MiniCat. The "Cat" part is short for, you got it, "compressed air technology." The company's headquarters are in Luxembourg, and the factory where the cars are produced is in Carros, France. But there's a New Delhi angle as well.
One of MDI's backers is Indian automotive giant Tata Motors, which last year invested 20 million euros in the European company, says this Reuters' story. Tata plans to begin building MDI-designed cars sometime this year, according to Reuters.
Coincidentally, today Tata unveiled its "people's car" a vehicle with a bargain basement price. At $2,500, the car would bring motoring to the masses in India, but the climate change scientist and chairman of the IPCC, R.K. Pachauri, said it was giving him "nightmares."
Pricing for MDI's own cars, meanwhile, is expected to start at about €3,500 (£2,620), with some models ranging up to about twice that price.
MDI got started in 1991, and work on various engine designs progressed through the middle of the decade. By the end of the 1990s, it settled on a business plan involving small, geographically dispersed production lines turning out between 2,000 and 8,000 cars per year, with the pilot factory in southern France. The current engine was developed toward the end of 2001, and the first prototypes of the MiniCat appeared in 2003.
Below is where you fill 'er up with compressed air. The air drives the pistons in the engine, and the engine returns the favour by recompressing air for later use. It could take four hours to refill the tanks via that method, but "the tanks can be refilled with high pressure in three minutes at an air station," the company says on its Web site. The compressed air engine is supplemented by an electric motor, and the latest versions of the cars also include a fuel engine option. The top speed of the cars is just over 90mph.
The compressed air tanks below are in a CityCats model, a larger version of the MDI design. The company says the system has been tested and found safe by aerospace giant EADS. The tanks are similar to those in use in natural gas buses in Germany, MDI says.
Below, a factory worker tinkers with a compressed air engine. MDI says the engines are quieter than traditional cars, but noisier than electric vehicles.
Look out for MDI's machines (interior below) on a French street near you soon. We'll keep you posted if these air-powered cars look likely to appear on British streets alongside our G-Wizs, Priuses and VW Polo Bluemotions.
21 January 2008 12:40pm
Utter Greenwash!! Compressing air takes electricity which burns up oil or coal in a power station. When all the conversion inefficiencies are taken into account this car will generate much more CO2 than a conventional one. You don't think so ? Why don't you quote its CO2/km figure then ?
29 February 2008 09:17am
Wow, This is an excellent Idea. As long as the compressor used to refill the pressure tanks runs on Solar power or wind driven generators this car's carbon footprint is next to nothing. I can't wait until these cars are available in the US. I'll be first in line to buy one. I engineered a solar powered generator that automatically refuels itself and has successfully powered my house as well as my neighbor's house for 6 years. We use approximately 9 kilowatt hours of city electricity every 6 months. Granted the system still requires us to use a small amount of city electricity. But it's infinitesimal compared to what most people use in just one day. I really hope this car makes it to the USA asap. Thank You for your green engineering.
16 March 2008 07:20am
The OneCAT Air Car will be at the New York Auto Show Mar 21-30. Go to http://www.catvolution.com/2008-ny-auto-show-eng.php
27 June 2008 10:12pm
in Oct 2002 the I.Mech.E,s Professional Eng.Mag. printed my letter saying the worldwide application of this engine would be tremendous as oil/petrol dependence could be eliminated.
15 July 2008 05:50pm
Im waiting for this CAR....MINICAT will be priced Rs.3.5L and superb mileage 300Kms in a air filling of just Rs. 85/- that means it will cost Rs.300 to go Goa from mumbai and come return..
15 July 2008 07:50pm
Pushing the onus back to electricity grid is a good option. It is easier to make the grid cleaner than clean up a billion points of pollution. The grid could use wind, solar, hydro - and generate more electricity.
24 July 2008 05:37am
Do you greenies have trouble spelling n u c l e a r ?
Nuclear = electricity to run a compressor to charge up the
tanks. Admittedly a big but solvable problem with nuc waste.
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