Indian air-powered City Cat car prepares for production run

The first commercial car to be powered by compressed air could be about to hit the production lines, as Indian automaker Tata Motors prepares to build ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre's design. We're not certain if it's the same air car that we hit just under three years ago, but if it is, it's about time! The City Cat runs on nothing but compressed air -- which can be refueled at "air stations," and overnight using a built-in compressor -- with a not too shabby top speed of 68MPH and a range of 125 miles. The Air Car designers are working on a hybrid version that can compress air while it's operating, potentially making cross-India journeys possible: Toyota Prius, eat your hybrid heart out. As EcoGeek points out, the game ain't up just yet for completely emissions free travel since the problem of the source of the electricity (usually acquired from fossil fuels) has yet to be solved. Plus, the fugly design really doesn't do it any favours: why does "green" have to mean "gah?"

[Via Digg]

[Matt @ May 27th 2007 8:25PM]

They're doing exactly that. The Chevrolet Volt has already entered the production cycle. The Volt is an electric car featuring next-generation motors and batteries, with gasoline-powered generator to generate electricity.

The GM Sequel isn't far behind. It is also an electric car with wheel-mounted independent motors. Rather than fossil fuels, this car uses a hydrogen-fuel-cell power plant to generate electricity, which emits only pure water. To reuse Luke's quote from above, "Nuclear Power + Water Hydrolysis + This Car = Win."

Both are able to be plugged in to charge, and the Volt will eventually also be offered in a fuel-cell version. GM's actually way ahead of the game where next-generation power plants are concerned, especially with fuel-cell technology.

[tobias @ May 27th 2007 7:07PM]

how many psi in the compressed air storage tank? any risks during an accident?

[dvs @ May 27th 2007 11:15PM]

the tanks would probably be made of carbon fiber instead of metal so that they wouldn't explode on impact

see this video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jjSOvbsE460

[Evan @ May 29th 2007 2:19AM]

There is almost no danger at all when it comes to that.
What most people don't know is that hybrids are more dangerous then they think. The chemicals and earth metals used in the battery can be extremely harmful not to mention explosive when mixed with gas. I remember my mechanics teacher at my high school saying that the police, medical and fire workers can't go near you with out special training an equipment.

[Crazylink @ May 27th 2007 7:02PM]

Wasn't this on the Discovery special?

[Dan @ May 28th 2007 8:41AM]

@ Crazylink -

To your question - No. The car you saw on the Discovery Channel's 'Future Cars' mini-series was completely different. Nice to know, though, that more than one group is working on this concept, isn't it?

[tom @ May 27th 2007 7:10PM]

Yeah, but they're probably still running good ol' fashioned gas-powered hella-pollutor air compressors for the FOUR HOURS it takes to fill that bad boy up.

When will people learn that burning a ton of gas to produce a more efficient vehicle probably still yields the same net emissions. I'm looking at you, E85.

[bombastinator @ Aug 20th 2007 11:58AM]

e85 only uses the starchy section of the corn. There are several other parts of the kernel which can be used for other purposes. The hulls in particular can be used to make plastic, and the germ is high protein and has numerous uses.

[Jamar @ May 27th 2007 7:11PM]

Compressed air? Now *that's* zero-emissions.

[Daniel @ May 27th 2007 7:21PM]

Sounds like a good idea. The energy to compress the air could come from renewable resources, solar or wind power or something with less greenhouse gass emissions such as nuclear. The big problem of energy generation is for governments (voted in by ourselves) to fix. This means that the consumer is not the one being responsible directly for burning fossil fuels which can only be a good thing.

[mr friggles @ May 27th 2007 7:24PM]

Gas powered air compressors? Most of the ones I heard of run on good 'ol electricity. This sh*ts all over anything the automakers released in the US. And apparently the author doesn't know you can switch to *GREEN* energy in alot of places, so depending on what city you're in this car can be 100% green. I think this article also misses one big point - most people are more interested in eliminating the need for gasoline rather than be 10000% green. Baby steps, right?

[treetrunk @ May 28th 2007 4:28AM]

"Gas powered air compressors? Most of the ones I heard of run on good 'ol electricity."

A lot of air compressors are gas powered, and even those which run on "good 'ol electricity" are powered by coal/gas/nuclear or whatever the power station its connected to is running on!

"I think this article also misses one big point - most people are more interested in eliminating the need for gasoline rather than be 10000% green. Baby steps, right?"

I think you're missing the point. Eliminating the need for gasoline is easy- there are loads of "green" energy storage options such as batteries, hydrogen/fuel cells, ultracapacitors and of course compressed air. The problem is that these only provide energy STORAGE. If you start using one of these without becoming "10000% green" then all you're doing is moving the problem to an increased demand for power generation, which doesn't solve anything.

There isn't anywhere near enough "green" power to run all our domestic demands as they are, let alone were everyone to connect their car to the grid! Growth in this area is slow due to the cost/size per megawatt and reliability (with the exception of hydro, which since it tends to require damming which has massive local environmental impact isn't terribly "green", most are intermittent in nature) being far inferior to conventional "polluting" options.

To those who think they could power this with a fan- I'd only recommend it while you're trying to slow down anyway, since that's what this will do. It's thermodynamics- you'll consume more compressed gas to overcome the extra drag than you could ever extract from it. To extract energy when slowing down anyway it'd be much more efficient to take it from the wheels.

[Luke @ May 27th 2007 7:23PM]

Nuclear Power + Electric Compressor + This Car = Win

The only problem is the morons who emotionally react against clean, efficient, and safe nuclear power.

[tchiseen @ May 27th 2007 7:29PM]

" Plus, the fugly design really doesn't do it any favours: why does "green" have to mean "gah?" "

I put it to the author to design a less fugly car. If it was designed by a professional, experienced engineer, it's most likely that 'form follows function'.

Also, you have to consider that it's being made for Indians.

[Rick @ May 27th 2007 7:34PM]

Compressed air? Introducing... The Fart. May the wind be always at your back.

[robothouse @ May 27th 2007 7:48PM]

Fugly? It looks good. Trust me, you don't know fugly until you've seen an Aztec up close.

[wslcrew @ May 27th 2007 11:16PM]

Have you seen Ssangyong Rodius? That car makes Aztec look like an Aston Martin

[Sameer Surampalli @ May 27th 2007 10:25PM]

Hey, that looks better than half the cars in India. At least it has an interior. With some of the cheaper cars, there is no interior... at all.. You can see metal everywhere.

My damn uncle owns one in India and it pisses me off whenever we ride in it.

[Ignatius @ May 28th 2007 12:15AM]

You forget that fuel-cell vehicles cost an upwards of ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

Electric cars are cheap compared to this and their fuel is even cheaper than this air car. Hydrogen is currently created via gasoline emissions and it would take years and millions more dollars setting up solar gas stations for hydrogen conversion.

Just think about this; hydrogen cars operate as thus. Hydrogen ---> Electricity to power motor ---> water emission.

Electric cars operate like this. Electricity to power car ---> no emissions.

If they had simply thrown batteries in, let you plug it in at night, you would get the same, if not more mileage and only pay 5 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour.

[Matt @ May 28th 2007 1:47AM]

Some information of which you should be aware:

Fuel cell vehicles cost nowhere near 1 million dollars, even in their current prototype state.

The production Chevrolet Volt will be affordable, and GM has stated that they're willing to sell it at a loss to do so.

Electric cars have two problems: range and performance. Both of these problems are addressed by having a power plant on board. The Volt uses a gasoline generator, and the Sequel uses a Fuel Cell generator.

The Sequel is considered a zero-emission vehicle, just like an electric with no power plant. Pure water emissions are not harmful, and could even be beneficial.

Both of the GM vehicles have batteries, and allow you to plug them in, so that their onboard power plant will operate only when necessary.

The vast majority of residential electricity in the US is created by burning fossil fuels. If you charge a plug-in hybrid or an electric vehicle with no power plant, you're still requiring that coal, oil, or natural gas be burned somewhere else.

[NakedOldGuy @ May 28th 2007 2:09PM]

Using compressed air for energy storage is a very poor choice, as batteries are highly more efficient when charging and releasing energy (heat loss).

[paul34 @ May 27th 2007 8:38PM]

I'm curious as to how a compressed-air motor sounds.

[AC @ May 28th 2007 6:38AM]

Eat more beans.

[deshpak @ May 27th 2007 9:35PM]

tekdroid you are so funny. I didn't see that one coming at all. You must be a hit during your third grade snack time!

tchiseen - "Also, you have to consider that it's being made for Indians." What the f*&^?!k is that supposed to mean? What are Indians blind!

[Aaron @ May 28th 2007 7:59AM]

Indians are obviously not blind, but I think he was probably making a statement about their travel needs rather than aesthetics. For example, in Europe it's more common to ride a bike or use public transportation, so vehicles tend to be smaller. Different designs for different needs.

So you guys can stop clicking the little minus button for that guy's post now, it probably wasn't meant to be offensive.

[Jagannath A @ May 27th 2007 9:36PM]

@paul34

search in youtube pal ;)

[Alex @ May 27th 2007 9:57PM]

Compressed air?! That's sweet! Now that's something I can't wait to develop further.

[drtekger @ May 27th 2007 11:00PM]

I guess the sound will be like *patt* *patt* *patt*
*ffffart* *shhhhh*

[Bo @ May 27th 2007 11:23PM]

It's a waste of time working on air when hydrogen is clearly the future of all travel.

[Evan @ May 29th 2007 2:26AM]

No unfortunately with hydrogen powered gas we will still be causing ozone depletion except it will form a sphere of ice around the planet causing global freezing.

[Irfan @ May 27th 2007 11:25PM]

risk during an accident? well i guess youd have a strong blast of air coming at you if the tank gets punctured. maybe it could launch off under its own energy and hit something... but compressed air wouldnt explode like hydrogen or anything. heck maybe the air would blow out a small fire. either way im sure engineers have looked into the pros/cons.

[Ken @ May 29th 2007 7:47AM]

Don't think a tank of compressed air poses much risk? Stick around a compressed air supply store when a tank fails hydrostatic testing.

[danday @ May 27th 2007 11:53PM]

@deshpak

The Curry is actually a nice name. Have some sense of humor.

This car is a good idea for India. This will reduce the pollution in the cities where people live. Also I think the cost of owning will be less than gasoline cars.

[paul34 @ May 28th 2007 12:09AM]

Hmm... maybe someone already thought of it, but would it be possible to hook up a small air compressor designed to take advantage of the kinetic energy of the wheels during deceleration (essentially, "creating" "fuel" during "engine braking")?

I mean, to some people (especially in the city), it probably wouldn't mean much... but if this vehicle (or something similar with more range) where used in maybe a hilly area, then you could go for longer.

In fact, if used for extended travel, I'd imagine that if the whole process were made efficient enough, one could basically decelerate, accelerate, little by little, many times, and basically go on for nearly forever.

Of course... it wouldn't be a very smooth ride!

[paul34 @ May 28th 2007 12:13AM]

Also, you could just have a small fan that runs at speed (like a windmill). I have a feeling this was already mentioned... but anyway, it could compress small amounts of air. Maybe not much, but since you're not really "losing" anything, I don't think it'd really "hurt."

I'm talking about a design similar to the emergency wind fan thing on airplanes that they can drop down in flight in the case of catastrophic power failure (it keeps the most critical instruments running).

[chris @ May 28th 2007 3:57AM]

Missed the battery step, mmm making batteries so good for the earth

[NovaLand @ May 28th 2007 1:07AM]

The problem with batteries that they cost a fortune and have to be changed after 3 years. It's costly and is not very good for the enviroment if you can't recycle the batteries to a whopping 100%. I imagine an air tank to be both longer-lasting and more recycable than batteries at the price of not being as effective as batteries. But what do I know...

[Yubal @ May 28th 2007 2:13AM]

The author of this post sounds like my girlfriend: "I don't like fluorescent bulbs because the color of the light is ugly."

I mean, using cheap air instead of pricey gasoline? Come on, man, even the dumbest person knows the difference about this. Who cares how it looks? It's going to be sold, big time.

And I agree with the guy who said it doesn't have to be 10000% green, but gasoline free.
http://el-cabron.blogspot.com

[RK @ May 28th 2007 2:19AM]

I've been following this idea for years, same company and person, starting with a Wired magazine article around 10 years ago.

There was a special recently and they are using or trying to use compressed air to generate compressed air.

According to Mr. Nègre he's been called a kook but the technology must be advancing somehow if they are still around and haven't been debunked.

Good luck to them!

[Yubal @ May 28th 2007 2:21AM]

I also think that fossils, if ever need to be used, are better suited to electricity plants, than us people.

http://el-cabron.blogspot.com

[DiedFamous @ May 28th 2007 2:28AM]

"Also, you could just have a small fan that runs at speed (like a windmill)"
-paul34

Thinking about it, that wouldn't be so hard to implement, if you simply placed a duct through the length of the car in any way, design hollows maybe 2" to 4" tall by however wide the chassis allows into the floor pan, place in a furnace-style drum fan into it, gear it way down with a single big ratio sun and planetary gear to drive a compressor. I have no idea what this would do to the aerodynamic behavior of the car, the drag created and weight added may very well outweigh the gains of the usable energy you get as compressed air. But thats only needed for however long it takes to fill the tank, its easy to put shutters on the end of a duct, it might be worth it as all the pneumatic system has to do is get better efficiency than the gasoline engine that supplies its "fuel".

[boriquajake @ May 28th 2007 2:43PM]

Paul34 and Diedfamous

Wow, I hope to hell you guys are either being facetious, or are under 15 because the alternative is that you are retarded. If one of the latter two, stop whatever you are doing and google "perpetual motion", right now.

[Rasti @ May 29th 2007 9:51AM]

Gasoline and Diesel cars, have a ENERGY "generator" (the motor, who produces torque from liquid combustible).
Electric cars, and "Air cars" are not using the motors as ENERGY "generator", producing torque from previously stored energy in the form of battery charge, or compressed air. So is not a "clean" option, because this kind of cars are clean themselves BUT are getting the energy from somewhere else, probably a very dirty MINERAL CARBON energy plant, FUEL OIL energy plant, or DEFECTIVE NUCLEAR PLANT.
So youre just passing the problem to another people.
The only good thing is that the people near the car will enjoy clean air

[Tony Colonello @ May 28th 2007 8:03AM]

Too bad you need a custom air compressor. If it could be redesigned to use the standard air pump used for fill tires you would be able to travel almost anyplace without worry.

The main question for countries like India, China and South East Asia is cost of ownership. When I met my wife in Thailand 4 years ago she was working as a nurse in a cancer hospital with 12 years of experience and making a middle class income of $300 a month. For her a scooter was a luxury.

If these 'green' alternatives cost more than the pollution belching things on the market now, they really don't have much choice.

Unless the electricity comes from photo-voltaic or wind generators or dams (which is another major environmental challenge) it starts out from the burning of some sort of fossil fuel. Until this cycle is broken electric cars will not be such a great advantage (environmentally speaking).

Also being that BP and Shell oil are major players in the photo voltaic market your money will still be going into the same pockets for a long time to come.

[Cameron Campbell @ May 28th 2007 10:05AM]

It's funny I read the comment about it being for Indians in exactly the same way that Aaron did... different markets like different things. Deal.

[VDM @ May 28th 2007 10:42AM]

During the previous air-powered car bubble, about 4 years ago, an italian chemistry professor did some calculation about the efficiency and feasibility of that approach (http://www.aspoitalia.net/documenti/bardi/eolo.html).
It seems that if pressure is very high, there will be some problem due to the fact that air will freeze; if pressure is low, there will not be much energy to move the car.
The italian factory for what was called Eolo, as the wind God, never started to produce, leaving 74 workers without work.

[Ignatius @ May 28th 2007 12:12PM]

Both fuel-cell and electric cars have batteries.

To charge up an electric car, it will cost you approximately $1-5. Depending on the batteries and type of chemistry used, you may get 100-300 miles. The electricity can come from anything, solar panels, nuclear power plants, oil or coal plants.

To fill up a tank of a hydrogen car, it will cost you approximately $20-30. It will garner about 100-200 miles, at best, until tank size or compression increases. The hydrogen will be made from burning fossil fuels or from converting solar energy into hydrogen.

Both cars have batteries, but hydrogen is harder to compress into a smaller area, resulting in an even lower range than electric cars. Currently, we have battery chemistry that now cuts the cell size in half while maintaining the same capacity. Lithium-ion polymer based batteries allow a vehicle to withstand the heat that normal lithium-ion based batteries cannot. They will also not explode while being punctured.

The lithium-ion polymer batteries also recharge to 90% in 5 minutes, and 100% in 15 total. Average kilowatt-per-hour rates are at approximately 8 cents. (Mine is 5.) If a battery has 25 Kph, it will cost you $2 to charge up in 15 minutes and only add it on to your bill at the end of the month or simply use excess energy stored from solar panels.

Electric cars do not have complex engines, they do not require oil, filters and other useless gunk attributed to gasoline engines. Hydrogen-hybrid vehicles will require this however, I'm not sure about just hydrogen based.

They both have batteries though, so look at it this way, you're either simply going to have to use electricity converted from other sources (fossil, solar, nuclear) or electricity converted from hydrogen from solar or fossil. Sounds really efficient to go that whole next step and up the cost a few hundred thousand, huh?

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ May 28th 2007 12:18PM]

Why not use the piston momentum from the exhaust stroke to compress exhaust gases in to a storage cylander where it could be fed back in to the engine and alow it to stop burning petrol and run on compressed gass that otherwise would be unused gas expelled from the motor? This could easly boost current MPG in existing combustion engines by 20-30%. Add an electric motor to the mix and get even more bang for the buck.

[treetrunk @ May 28th 2007 3:01PM]

I second the above comment on perpetual motion.

"Why not use the piston momentum from the exhaust stroke to compress exhaust gases in to a storage cylander where it could be fed back in to the engine and alow it to stop burning petrol and run on compressed gass that otherwise would be unused gas expelled from the motor?"

You clearly don't know how a 4-stroke engine works. The "piston momentum" is already "stored" in the engines flywheel and used to compress the next charge of fuel/air mixture. If you try and compress the leaving exhaust gases using the piston you increase the force back on the piston, opposing motion of the engine and reducing its efficiency. Since both the compression and running of engine on compressed gas will be much less than 100% efficient the amount of energy one could extract would be much less than the amount extra wasted in the engine.

[Lee @ May 28th 2007 1:58PM]

Great news. The air engine is already in use in forklifts in a warehouse in Australia. Designs for this type of engine have come from Spain, Italy, Australia and probably many other countries so I'm surprised that the first commercially produced domestic (i.e non-industrial) vehicle has come from India. I hope this is the first of many technological surprises of India.

As for pollution created by refuelling, it takes less than a couple of minutes. Check out the Wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_engine

Looks like many of the problems mentioned in the Wiki have been resolved.