Apparently the first commercial compressed air car will be shortly going into production for the Indian market using technology developed by MDI (Moteur Developpment International) for (initially) Tata Motors. Apparently, using compressed air it obtains 200 - 300 km for 90 m^3 worth of air, costing less than 1 Euro per 100 km and gets a top speed of 110 km/h. Refills can be accomplished in 2 to 3 minutes, or 3 to 4 hours using a small compressor if you want to fill up at home.
Due to the fact that air is cheap and plentiful and the engine works on decompression only, no harmful byproducts or exhaust is generated (they use the cold air exhaust as air conditioning). Apparently 1 litre of vegetable oil is the primary consumable, and needs to be changed about every 50,000 km. The expected price will be about $13,400 Au for £5,500, which is quite cheap!
Read about it here from Gizmag. More details about the engine from MDI here.
All you need is one of these, a solar powered compressor, and you might never need to get a top up again! Hopefully the Australian government will put some more effort into clean transportation, most of the time it’s merely shifting people less than 50 km from home to work, which is a huge pollution problem.
Dear Sir,
When will this car become available in London England ?
Thank You
Yours sincerely
James Colaco
Not for quite a while unfortunately. It depends if anyone is going to be able to import the cars from India, or develop a similar sort of car for England directly.