Actually the Automotive X Prize awards the money not to the first such car, but to the 100 MPG car which wins a staged race across America with all other such cars who choose to compete! This is course much more difficult!

Check out the various competitors here: X Prize Cars

Howard Hughs developed a steam car when he was just starting out. Then he took a sledge hammer to it to simulate a traffic accident. Since radiators were in the doors and all over the car, an accident would "Cook" the passengers with boiling hot water. Using this as an example, What would happen to the pressurized tank if this car were in an accident? Could a fracture in the tank casing cause an explosive rupture killing the passengers?

Why don't you use the internet to find out before posting.

I'm not really all about being environmentally friendly. I'm just cheap. I will definately buy a car that can run at least 100mpg.

For the record, the air tanks are carbon fiber not metal and if ruptured, the air simply escapes. I'm wondering how efficient the air car is versus battery cars in terms of power required to "fill up". Also, how noisy is the motor, since it has no cooling system?

Hey Tata Motors....
Why not use a Hydrogen heater to heat the air. The
Hydrogen can be produced from solar panels on the car while its sitting then pumped through a Hydrogen fuel cell to produce electricity for running a heater or powering a mini hydrogen turbine engine.

Re: pressure tanks - I've been driving CNG powered gas (regular household gas) for the last 8 years (in Germany). The tanks are pressurized to 200bar (2900psi)and are similar to regular welding gas bottles. I've never heard of a rupture...I've had a Fiat and more recently a Ford C-max. They drive like a dream for half the price of regular fuel.

You know, I'd buy one of these cars if it wasn't an embarrassment to drive. Seriously, why can't we get cars that both work better, and look the same as current cars? That's what the real problem with getting mainstream acceptance is going to be, appearance. Nobody wants to be laughed at for the car they drive and this one looks silly, it's not 'snazzy-looking', it's terrible.

Give me a car that looks the same as all the other cars, but happens to also be environmentally friendly/good gas mileage, and I'd buy that car without question. As it is, I'd feel self-conscious every time I drove it.

It's simple truth. I'll probably get flamed for saying it, but it's truth nonetheless. I'd buy an enviro-unfriendly car before one of these, just because of the appearance, and I'd bet 70% of other car drivers would too.

A lot of promises for the last 10 years, and still, not a prototype that can do what is claimed. 340 liters of air at 4500 PSI will never move a vehicle 120 miles. They are just fishing for more investors. The receive free advertising for their outrageous claims and tell people what they want to hear. IF this car did what is claimed, or was even capable of doing close to what is claimed, they would have had all of the money they needed to bring it to production years ago. Venture capitalists would be tossing BILLIONS their way if the idea held much promise. It is those that do not stop and ask questions who fall head over heels for this idea. The closer you look the more questions you ask, the more the claims fall apart.

They spend their investors money to put on a nice show, but come up short in performance.
If you notice some details in their pictures you will notice things are not right. They have a small device supposedly refilling the car with air, the size of the unit would never be able to develop the pressures claimed, but it looks good in pictures.
Their one prototype only traveled 5 miles in tests, but they promise with dubious extrapolations and questionable projections that it means the car will be capable of 120 miles.
The car will also according to them have an onboard compressor that can be plugged in and fill the car up in 4 hours. Have any of you seen the size of a compressor that can produce the volumes and pressures needed? The answer is they are extremely heavy, have multiple stages to the compression, have cooling between stages, and take up a good bit of room, where they will put something like that in a car, well I am sure it is a trade secret. Read the press releases from 2000 and 2001, they say the cars will be in production "NEXT" year. Well maybe next year. Dream on.

Interesting concept. Hope it works out to all the hype. If it does, I will buy one.

Hey Avagadro, get your measurements right. The vehicle stores 3200 ft^3 of air at 4500psi, this works out to 90613.9 liters not 340. I also have no idea where you are getting the 120 miles. On compressed air only, the car will run 60 miles. After that, the 5.5Kw compressor kicks in for longer trips.

A factual correction...ZPM is not a division of Tata Motors. Tata Motors of India has licensed the engine tech from France based company MDI to possibly apply to one of their future models, most likely a compressed air powered optional Nano or other small model. The American rep for MDI, Shiva Vencat, started ZPM in New Paltz NY to begin building and distributing the air car in the States. The tanks will be AirBus built and made of carbon fiber, and there is no risk of explosion or shrapnel if punctured. This is not steam engine tech from the 1800's we're talking about.

One thing that I have seen several times that bothers me is when people declare this can't work because a 4500psi compressors would be too heavy, hot, and noisy to fit in the car. Obviously, no one is driving around with a 4500psi compressor in the car, because you don't have to! If you've ever used a hand pump to inflate a bicycle tire, you know that if the tire is supposed to be at 100 psi, thats not the pressure being put out by the pump, thats the pressure inside the tire after you've finished inflating it. The built in compressor in the CAV will be a proprietary model designed to work effiently in it's specific app, topping off the tanks over the course of several hours. It could theoretically be powered by solar panels either on the car itself, mounted on the owners property, or otherwise by alternative power sources such as wind, which is becoming more and more prevalent every year.

While it's true they have declared production was coming soon several times over the years, the problem was financing. The price of oil was low enough that few people saw the point in investing, or even caring for that matter. Remember, everyone in the States was falling over each other trying to buy SUV's.

It's a different story now of course. Oil just topped out at 145+ and has come down to around 120 last I checked, but will only go back up in the long run. We're also in a recession, officially or not, so people are much more open minded to an inexpensive, small, light, fuel efficient vehicle. In fact I'd say they are desperate for them. Tata Motors has licensed the tech from MDI, and may well intro these engines in India within the next year.

MDI/ZPM also has entered the Progressive Automotive Xprize competition, and has a very, very good chance of winning, based on the guide lines of the contest and provided of course the car lives up to their performance claims. Arguably their biggest competitor is Tesla Motors, which makes 100K plus sports cars powered by laptop batteries. They may look good and even perform well, but they are not financially practical or mass production friendly.

Speaking of batteries, that's another reason the air car has so much potential. Current battery tech is actually not that good, and even the good ones have a short life span. This is not a problem for the air car.

Mark my words. Air car wins or places high in the xprize, gets a lot of press attention, Production starts in 2010, and all your friends will want one.

~numasia

This is really interesting project; I want to work with!

Just one thing . . . How is compressing air, then directing flow through an engine, supposed to be more efficient than any other kind of more direct propulsion? Even venting the flow out the back of the vehicle ala jet engine would seem to be more efficient.

@biketourist

The developers of these vehicles are claiming at least 50% efficiency, compared to a conventional internal combustion engine which rarely tops 10-15%. While this is not quite as efficient as some of the top electric vehicles out here, it will cost far less because it does not rely on a huge bank of expensive batteries.

As far as venting the flow out the back of the vehicle, that's not an efficient way of propelling a car at all. For starters, it would be dangerous, and there would be no traction on the tires at all, making handling and braking the thing a nightmare.