Des nouvelles de la voiture à Air comprimé

L'ingénieur français Guy Nègre verra prochainement sa voiture à air comprimé produite par l'indien Tata Motors

Will be available in India soon

La première video explique le fonctionnement du moteur.

La seconde nous donne des  informations sur sa prochaine commercialisation en Inde.

The world’s first commercial compressed air-powered vehicle is rolling towards the production line. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre, will be built by India’s largest automaker, Tata Motors.

The Air Car concept developed by Guy Nègre has been available for a long time but no other auto manufacturers participated in it until now when India’ Tata Motors agreed to produce Air Cars for the market.

The Air Car uses compressed air to power the engines pistons rather than fuel. Tata Motors has announced approximately 6000 Air Cars will be cruising in the streets of India by 2008. The car called CityCat will have a maximum speed of 68 mph with a driving range of 125 miles. The cost of a fill up is estimated to be $2.00 via custom air compressor units set up in fuel stations. The car also has a built in compressor that will refill the tank in 4 hours.

The compressed air technology will be similar to storing electrical technology only without the need for costly, heavy and toxic batteries. The only emission the car gives is air, no other emissions. However since the compressed air is generated by other fuel sources which can cause emissions, such as the coal power they use in India. But if renewable energy sources are used in the future, this won’t be a major problem.

The cars won’t be available in North America because the Auto industry is not interested and say it won’t pass the crash tests, which I doubt because they will be using similar car materials for it except the compressed air engine. Till they change their minds, we are stuck with cars giving 20 to 30 mpg.

Air Car will also be available in 12 countries including Germany, Israel and South Africa. They are not stopping with just the compressed air engines, where the compressed air may not be available in long distances, they are planning to have hybrids with gasoline powered compressors to refill the air tanks. Nègre says with this technology one can have a long cross country trip with just one tank of gasoline.

Since auto manufacturers won't help, maybe Google, Microsoft can chip in to produce these cars in North America.