Air Cars: A New Wind for America's Roads?
A new carmaker has a plan for cheap, environmentally friendly cars to be built all over the country.
By Jim Ostroff, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
October 28, 2008
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An air-powered car? It may be available sooner than you think at a price tag that will hardly be a budget buster. The vehicle may not run like a speed racer on back road highways, but developer Zero Pollution Motors is betting consumers will be willing to fork over $20,000 for a vehicle that can motor around all day on nothing but air and a splash of salad oil, alcohol or possibly a pint of gasoline.
The expertise needed to build a compressed air car, or CAV, is not rocket science, either. Years-old, off-the-shelf technology uses compressed air to drive old-fashioned car engine pistons instead of combusting gas or diesel fuel to create a burst of air to do the same thing. Indian carmaker Tata has no qualms about the technology. It has already bought the rights to make the car for the huge Indian market.
The air car can tool along at a top speed of 35 mph for some 60 miles or so on a tank of compressed air, a sufficient distance for 80% of consumers to commute to work and back and complete daily chores.
On highways, the CAV can cruise at interstate speeds for nearly 800 miles with a small motor that compresses outside air to keep the tank filled. The motor isn't finicky about fuel. It will burn gasoline or diesel as well as biodiesel, ethanol or vegetable oil.
This car leaves the highest-mpg vehicles you can buy right now in the dust. Even if it used only regular gasoline, the air car would average 106 mpg, more than double today's fuel sipping champ, the Toyota Prius. The air tank also can be refilled when it's not in use by being plugged into a wall socket and recharged with electricity as the motor compresses air.
Automakers aren't quite ready yet to gear up huge assembly line operations churning out air cars or set up glitzy dealer showrooms where you can ooh and aah over the color or style. But the vehicles will be built in factories that will make up to 8,000 vehicles a year, likely starting in 2011, and be sold directly to consumers.
There will be plants in nearly every state, based on the number of drivers in the state. California will have as many as 17 air car manufacturing plants, and there'll be around 12 in Florida, eight in New York, four in Georgia, while two in Connecticut will serve that state and Rhode Island.
The technology goes back decades, but is coming together courtesy of two converging forces. First, new laws are likely to be enacted in a few years that will limit carbon dioxide emissions and force automakers to develop ultra-high mileage cars and those that emit minuscule amounts of or no gases linked with global warming. Plug-in electric hybrids will slash these emissions, but they'll be pricey at around $40,000 each and require some changes in infrastructure -- such as widespread recharge stations -- to be practical. Fuel cells that burn hydrogen to produce only water vapor still face daunting technical challenges.
Second, the relatively high cost of gas has expedited the air car's development. Yes, pump prices have plunged since July from record levels, but remain way higher than just a few years ago and continue to take a bite out of disposable income. Refiners will face carbon emission restraints, too, and steeply higher costs will be passed along at the pump.
Zero Pollution Motors doesn't plan to produce the cars in the U.S. Instead, it plans to charge $15 million for the rights to the technology, a fully built turnkey auto assembly plant, tools, machinery, training and rights to use trademarks.
The CAV has a big hurdle: proving it can pass federal crash tests. Shiva Vencat, president and CEO of Zero Pollution Motors, says he's not worried. "The requirements can be modeled [on a computer] before anything is built and adjusted to ensure that the cars will pass" the crash tests. Vencat also is a vice president of MDI Inc., a French company that developed the air car.
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Reader Comments (21)
Posted by: emag at 10/27/2008 04:58:39 PM
re: The CAV has a big hurdle: proving it can pass federal crash tests. Big deal. None of my motorcycles can pass the federal crash tests either. Doesn't stop me from using them, I just use more caution than many (most?) auto drivers. Maybe if more drivers realized, "Hey, I could be really hurt or killed if I continue to drive stupid" we'd collectively become safer drivers. Get these CAVs on the road!
Posted by: JD at 10/27/2008 07:06:57 PM
Something like 90% of Americans consider themselves above-average drivers. It's not you you should be worried about. It's the other guy. Safety is a legitimate concern, but this is an interesting technology.
Posted by: Kent at 10/27/2008 07:27:27 PM
I have hard time believing anything in this article.
Posted by: Nomen at 10/27/2008 11:37:43 PM
A $20,000 target price for a low performance vehicle that uses compressed air? The last time I looked, my garage air compressor has a very large electric motor and takes several minutes to fill a small air tank to only 120psi and draws a lot of amps while doing it. The CAV would need a few hundred cubic feet at 4500psi. Home filling sounds unlikely without a very expensive and slow high pressure unit. I'd like to see some realistic operational cost data for the CAV.(I bet it isn't as cheap to operate as it sounds.) At first glance I'd rather have a $12,000 Smart car and buy $8000 worth of gas. Let's see. $8000 would buy 2000 gal. of $4/gal. gas and at 50 mpg would take me 100,000 miles. Unless the CAV price is much lower than $20,000, I don't think it sounds like such a bargain. Setting up commercial quick filling stations would also be needed. Can you get us some more hard data, Jim? By the way, E85 is already dying in my area because it didn't deliver the promised hype. If you can even find it, the price is now higher than regular gas. Hopefully, the CAV won't be just more hot air.
Posted by: Safety? at 10/28/2008 12:12:12 AM
I am concerned about a catastrophic puncture of the compressed air tank for these vehicles. It would be quite a bomb.
Posted by: AngryTaxpayer at 10/28/2008 12:45:37 AM
If FORD, GM, AND CHRYSLER would get these cars on the road NOW maybe they wouldn't NEED the "bailout" they are looking for from us taxpayers! What a country! You can be STUPID and get FREE money! Hey how about 700B for us??
Posted by: Sherry at 10/28/2008 01:47:29 PM
Interesting, haven't heard of this before. This past year the exorbitant cost of fuel has seriously damaged our economy. After filling up the family vehicles and paying more for every consumer product whose cost of production and shipping was passed on to us there was little left over to save, invest or spend. So, we tighten our belts , cut out some extras, buy only the bare min. That sadly in turn results in more job losses. OPEC has us over a barrel literally. WE reduce our use they in turn just cut production by 1.5 million barrels a day and vow to cut more if they don't get the price results they want. Our country needs to invest in reducing our dependence on foreign oil. The 168 Billion they paid out in the last stimulus pkg that did nothing at all for our economy would have gone a long way toward getting us started on the road to energy independence. I highly recommend Jeff Wilson's new book The Manhattan Project of 2009 for anyone interested in this topic. It is a fascinating and very comprehensive book!
Posted by: Nomen at 10/28/2008 02:13:38 PM
Mr. Ostroff, early last year I stated that $3/gal. gas was stalling the economy because average people were already running up their credit cards to tread water and were having trouble making house payments. I also stated that $4/gal would soon take us into a recession. Our local economy and the world's are BASED on cheap energy. You said that we would never see $2/gal. gas again. It's $1.99/gal. right now in KC. If our government and Detroit don't take this breather to develop a comprehensive plan immediately, it will be too late. Without a crash program for conservation, mass transit and alternative energy along with much more fuel efficient vehicles including hybrids,electrics and CAVs, the Wall Street bailouts won't revive the economy for long. Unfortunately,neither Presidential candidate seems to have a clue and our economic experts can't seem to look over top of their graphs to see the problems in real time.
Posted by: spider1960 at 10/28/2008 02:20:28 PM
To Nomen.....It's the emissions. The Smart car is rated 33/41 MPG.
Posted by: Nomen at 10/28/2008 11:09:05 PM
To spider. I have wanted a Smart for over six years. The previous models were 600-700cc and this past year upped to 1.0 liter. Highway mileage in various publications has been listed at up to 69mpg for gas and over 80mpg for the diesel. Your 33/41mpg is the worst I've seen and was recently published for the bloated U.S. version. Even with that you could get 82,000 highway miles. The CAV is not necessarily emmissions free depending on the source of electricity to compress the air or the heat source used to increase its range. My point was that $20,000 for a CAV was overpriced. I also have reservations about passengers sitting in close proximity to a couple hundred cubic feet of 4500psi compressed air. While the explosive force of the exploding scuba tank used in the movie "Jaws" to blow up the shark was exaggerated,sitting within a few feet of leaking 4500psi tank could be quite hazardous. In a wreck even carbon fiber could fail with dire consequences. A jet of air at that pressure could cut through flesh like a chain saw.
Posted by: nate at 11/01/2008 12:31:08 PM
Multiple factories in each state - what a pie in the sky. This stuff shows up every time gas goes way up in price. The technology doesn't work. A small compressor can't keep up with the need of even a small engine to climb a hill or cruise at speed. There are no test results from any prototype that are scientifically duplicable and there won't be in the near future. Crash tests are the least of their worries.
Posted by: H. Rose at 11/03/2008 09:20:17 AM
To Jim (Editor) and all readers... These are "stories of the weird" .... the press lock onto anything that looks odd just as a moth does to light, only to later get burned. So first of all, it is NOT a car. Did anyone notice, or think to mention is has just one front wheel? So here we are again, another vehicle that will be classified as a motorcycle, with no need to comply with CAR safety and performance regulations. No side impact beams, crumple zones in front or rear, airbags, foot and leg protection, etc. etc. Seldom do these motorcycles have air conditioning, heaters, pleasing audio systems, comfortable seats etc. These cars make the public believe the automakers are stupid, comparing a non safety-compliant motorcycle with full speed, satisfying acceleration, full function autos that will hold 5 people. I would put $$'s today on a bet that says this will never see commercial use on U.S. roads. Journalists should stop being duped by these snake oil claims, prove the claims made (speed, accel and distance) and call them for what they are, motorcycles. Otherwise, it is just hot air.
Posted by: ScottT at 11/03/2008 10:52:17 AM
I've been watching MDI since 2002. They're always "a few years" from full production. As yet they have never proven that the vehicle works. What they have been doing is selling the rights to manufacture their cars, and they've been quite successful as far as I can see. They sold several turn-key plants to Mexico City a few years back. The city argued that replacing all their taxis with air powered cars would dramatically reduce their pollution problems... an excellent idea. (Back then the air car looked like a fibre-glass London taxi cab as opposed to today's "plastic bubble".) The problem was that the plants were never built and that is because the cars just don't work. Popular Mechanics magazine ran an article almost identical to the one above in June 2007 about the vehicle scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008 . This was the "taxi" model. The author of the article was not allowed to see the engine or confirm that what was moving the demo car was the air engine as the developers claimed. In fact no-one has ever been able to confirm that the thing works, not even for purely scientific purposes. The reason for this is that the whole thing is a scam to sell the licenses to build the cars, not the cars themselves. The engine itself is based on the Stirling Engine (see wikipedia) which is a closed-cycle regenerative heat engine. The temperature differential between the external air and the internal working fluid (or even air) drives a piston that then generates the power. However, even the most basic thermaldynamics will show that compressed air does not create a temperature differential even close to that required to gain any power from the engine. If this engine did work as claimed all the environmental groups would be singing its praises from the rooftops... yet we hear not a word. cnn.com also ran an article about the air car: which also points out that "Production would be similar to a franchise business" where "The cars would be manufactured by privately owned plants that could produce at least 4,000 vehicles a year". The cost of a licence $460,000. "The cost of a plant is $20 million." Apparently the first plant is scheduled to open in New York in 2010. Anyone heard about this? Shouldn't the owners be advertising their product trying to rake in pre-sales like Tesla Motors has done. What do we hear? Nothing! I'd love this to be true but in reality it's just another scam.
Posted by: shiva vencat at 11/03/2008 06:42:47 PM
To all these negative comments.I have just one thing to say. Tata motors of India spend 2 years with their engineers to check our claims and our patents and paid 30 million Euros (about US $ 40 milion at current exchange rates) to have the right to the technology for India on an exclusive basis. Tata Motors is the large car manufacturing company in India and would not paid such amount for a scam. They spent the money to look at what we have done and before you make these kind of comments you should take a trip to Nice France and see out prototypes running. Regards Shiva Vencat
Posted by: David Bull at 11/03/2008 09:53:56 PM
Re:MDI Technology. As one who has been close to this technology and its deveopment over the past ten or twelve years (and knows that it is real and the people involved are not shysters) it ammazes me that you Americans are so ignorant when it comes to something you didn`t think of first. I suggest you go to www.thefuture.co.nz and spend an hour or two educating yourselves. Tata Motors are the fifth largest manufactuers of commercial vehicles in the world. They bought Jaguar and Land Rover in the last year and it beggers belief that they would have paid 30 mill eruos for an MDI license if their engineers had not scrutinized the technology and given it the thumbs up. But then you Americans have a habit of putting your foot in it. Heres a quote or two for example. "Computers in the future may weigh no more 1.5 tons" Popular Mechanics, 1949. (Now they really know their stuff don`t they). "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home" Ken Olson, Digital Equipment Corp,1977. "640K ought to be enough for anyone" Bill Gates, 1981. "The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives" Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project. "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" Thomas Watson, Chairman IBM. 1943. "The average American family hasn`t time for television" The New York Times, 1939. That one I agree with as you will be to busy digging yourselves out of the massive hole you are currently in and then walking home because your GM tank has run out of gas.
Posted by: Bob at 11/04/2008 11:51:18 AM
I have crunched the numbers several ways and keep coming up with a far more limited range of less than 25 miles even if there were 20 standard scuba sized tanks at double pressure (approx. 2900cu.ft.)under the vehicle. This would be if every inch of linear expansion of the air pushing a two inch diameter power piston could be utilized for forward propulsion. Throw in a load with some friction, wind resistance and a couple hills; then the range becomes so small as to be useless. This definitely looks like a scam. I like Nomen's idea of just going to proven and cheaper smaller fuel efficient vehicles like the Smart car while we get the bugs worked out of electric vehicles and green sources of electric production. We could easily cut our energy consumption in half this way with current technology while focusing future research on better solutions. I hate to see con artists come along and siphon off valuable time and resources that we don't have to spare. The CAV may have a limited place but it won't be in my garage.
Posted by: Jim Ostroff at 11/05/2008 12:17:47 PM
The CAV's air tanks will be "recharged" during driving by a small onboard motor that can burn a variety of fuels. These are four-wheeled vehicles. For those no familiar with Kiplinger, we do not take sides. We do not vouch for Zero Pollution Motor's (ZPM) business or manufacturing plans. Any entrepreneur who is contemplating making a large investment in an auto production facility will have to do the due diligence with respect to ZPM's operations, its business plan, the technology and whether or not a given area will support new car sales of any kind, the same as they would if contemplating buying a Ford, or Toyota, or GM dealership. It is relevant to note that Tata Motors, now one of the world's foremost automakers, has purchased the rights to manufacture CAVs in India. Surely it would not have done so on faith alone. Air France in spring will do a half-year test of these vehicles at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam's Schiphol airports. The airline will take delivery of "live" vehicles. There may well be real market-based challenges to widespread sales of CAVs. Recall, there was great doubt expressed in the 1990s about the viability of gasoline-hybrid electric cars, just as there is today about plug-in hybrids. Fact is, exterior forces such as gasoline prices and government clean air mandates can and do shift the market dynamics dramatically. Meanwhile, we stand by our forecast that gas pump prices will not decline nationally below $2-a-gallon.
Posted by: Dave at 11/05/2008 02:45:29 PM
Concerning your last disclaimer. It would take a 10 HP gas or diesel powered compressor for scuba tanks about 5 hours at full load to refill a 2900 cu. ft. tank to 4500 psi. Doesn't sound like a "splash of salad oil, alcohol or possibly a pint of gasoline" does it? Adding such a compressor to a CAV doesn't sound like a viable idea cost wise or emissions wise. As far as the developer's and auto maker's credibility, they damaged that themselves by not delivering on their production promises and advertising hype. As far as doubt about hybrids in the 1990s, back then why would anyone want the added cost, complexity and battery weight at a time when we were told that peak oil was far in the future and gas was still relatively cheap. Even global warming didn't have many converts yet. As far as your forecast for gas prices, I recall that you said we would never see $2/gal. again. It's $1.75-$1.85/gal. in KC right now. It's no wonder you are catching more flak than usual on this story. But I'm also sure that the first Obama crisis will push the price of oil right back up to new records. Just be sure to run your scam filter on the next "to good to be true" break through.
Posted by: Martin at 11/06/2008 10:40:59 AM
The federal crash test caught my eye and the statement "The requirements can be modeled [on a computer] before anything is built and adjusted to ensure that the cars will pass". (I wonder if Detroit knows about this?) Since there is only one practical location for the high pressure tanks and there will be weight constraints on shielding them ,this sounds way too optimistic. How many years will it take to redesign? On the lighter side,maybe they will use high pressure cylinders to replace the 5 MPH bumpers. If you get rear ended by an SUV, the CAV may go farther than the space shuttle. If it was a head on crash,well, we won't even talk about that. Just joking? Maybe not. I'm just another ignorant American who didn't get an engineering degree in France or India or NZ. I do hope that the CAV works out no matter who thought of it first but we already have similar vehicles here and they are called Golf Carts.
Posted by: Don Morey at 11/12/2008 09:37:17 AM
The second law of thermodynamics prohibits getting more out of a system than you put into it. The compressed air in this system is not the fuel, it is part of the transmission of energy to the drive. The fuel (with potential energy converted to kinetic energy) drives the compressor (on board or at a compressor somewhere) much like winding a spring to run a toy or clock. The air car scheme of an onboard compressor using "a pint of fuel" in absurd to say the least. Kiplinger needs to de-bunk this scam to save their credibility.
Posted by: Charlie at 11/21/2008 01:43:30 PM
I wonder if Kiplinger bothered to look at the history of MDI. In October 2000, MDI and Zero Pollution Motors announced that the evolution air car would be in salesrooms in South Africa in early 2002. US$10,000 price. Range of 120 miles. Also said that production in France would commence before the end of 2000. Also in October 2000, MDI announced air-powered taxis would be built in Mexico. Factory to be built mid-2001. Car production by 2002. Also says that factories had already been installed in France and cars were already being built in France. "Mr Negre says a tank-full of air - on which a car can travel up to 200km (120 miles) at a speed of about 90km/h" Obviously, these cars were never produced. Perhaps Mr. Shiva Vencat can enlighten us as to the current status of these projects and why they didn't happen. Anyway, the evolution disappeared, to be replaced by the MiniCat. An October 4, 2004 article on MSNBC: The 3 seater MiniCat will be priced at US$ 9,850; will first go on sale in France in mid-2005. Projected performance is in the range that might actually be achievable -- 70MPH top speed, range of 50 miles. Although the expected production date was only 8 months away, just like the other MDI cars, does not appear to ever make it to production. Moving forward to June 2007, lets see what Popular Mechanics has been told: "Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008. " The CityCat will be priced at US$ 12,700, top speed of 68MPH, and a surprisingly large range of 125 miles running on 340 liters of air compressed to 4350psi Let's see what Tata Motors says in August 2008, when the Popular Mechanics article says 6,000 air cars are scheduled to hit the streets of India.: "The technology for an automobile engine that runs on compressed air is still in the development stage and launch of cars fitted with such engines from the Tata Motors stable in the near future is ruled out," Rajiv Dube, President, Passenger Cars. Kiplinger doesn't allow links, but you can google to confirm the statements above.