Looks interesting. "Mostly air- and fuel-driven motor" piques my curiosity a bit, though. Early news reports didn't mention that...

I thought tatas favored either some sort or plastic or saline solution.

Imagining the engine note of the future, can we call it the Fart Car?

whats the back up plan, a tire pump?

@htrodblder: Get a hooker to suck start it.

I wonder if the air is supplied by the driver through a hose like the one on Christopher Reeve's electric wheel chair.

Play artist "Air Supply"

/does it have SYNC?

Eagerly awaiting the tuner version.

Gee, didn't one of your commentors mention this the other day? I wonder who that was?

My kids have had air-powered AirHog planes and cars for a long time. I've always thought that the concept was great, and wondered if it could be scaled up to automotive size & run efficiently. The Mental Floss article links to the developer of the air engine, and they're working on a version that will run on air or petrol; air for low speeds and gas for highway speeds. Lots of interesting tech stuff on that aircar.com link.

Some guy (in India I think) has been driving around a truck that runs on compressed air. He built it himseslf. I think it was on this site or gizmodo a while back.

Compressed air is a good energy storage idea, Scientific American has an article about compressed air storage for major solar power plants this month.

At this rate it won't be that long before somebody invents a way of being environmentally friendly without looking stupid.

@thunder: From that aircar site:

"...in three words: the future is now."

So in the near future a young hoon will glare at his enemy in the lane beside him and say, "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your doors off!"

@STR8SIX: OMG

@Travis Hudson
You only got to use compressed air in your shop class race cars? My school used model rocket motors, so the car I built had real flames coming out of the back of it - as it broke free at the end of the track and continued on into a brick wall, destroying itself. Most of the class used metal for their cars, I used tape reinforced styrofoam with a popsicle stick subframe for the motor and wheel mounts to keep the weight down (and win).

Wonder what the garage will charge for a blow job?

@beercheck: That wasn't supposed to be a question.

@beercheck: If you're lucky they might do your battery...

Aaaaand your engine sounds like a full blown air compressor running in a car with no sound deadening. Have fun going deaf.

This is ancient news - compressed air cars are horribly inefficient, since compressed air is horribly inefficient as an energy storage technology. The stats I've seen is that compressed air can only be used at low speeds and has little in the way of range. All of them are hybrids that depend on gasoline to actually get anywhere.

@THEBIKE45 saywha? You need to see some more recent stats.

Anyways, just went through their site [www.theaircar.com] - it looks like a rough translation from french to english, and some of the links are still linked up with the old french pages, so a little back tracking.

There are some videos to see and hear the car itself, and if they've been allowed to be tested on public roads then we're not going to be waiting that long before a few more people know about them on this side of the pond.

I'm okay with a commuter pod to go around from work - the rest of the time, let me go hoonin :]