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I think you wear a part of the motorcycle in order to keep you inside. If you could detach what looks like the built-in jumpsuit, you could wear it anywhere. Still, I don't see how this is not a step back. Regular motorcycles seem much better in almost every aspect. FTA, it says that it's to be environmentally friendly, but if they really wanted it to do that, they would make a design based on The air car. And to make it safer, they could make the front of the motorcycle a dome-like structure that spreads the force of the impact (the bike could lock you in to prevent you from hitting it). Though the glass of the dome would have to be very strong, and probably costly.

What you are missing though is that the air is not only compressed by a facility, it can be compressed by the car itself. As the car drives using fossil fuel (speeds over 60km/h or 35mph) it is refilling the compressed air tank. For most of your city driving (under 60km/h or 35mph), you'll be using compressed air. You'll get your biggest MPG efficiency on city driving, not highway, so don't expect to take a 1000-mile trip out of town on one 8-gallon tank of fuel. These cars are not meant for highway travel, they are meant for city travel. And this makes sense too, as the time you are burning the most fuel is accelerating from stopped. Instead of burning excess amounts of fuel during acceleration, you'll be using compressed air.

So the cost of the compressed air for the most likely intended use of this car (city driving), both $ and energy, is already included in the 8 gallons of fossil fuel (gasoline?). And to prevent yourself from having to hit an air station, just jump on a highway for a few miles.

See http://www.theaircar.com/howitworks.html

Air could be compressed with the energy used in braking. The scary thing about compressed air is what could happen in an accident. Lugging around an explosion-proof thick walled vehicle might negate the fuel savings. ....

Any diver has such an 'explosion-proof' compressed air container on their bare backs.
You just use a few dimes of electricity to fill the tank(s).

It's the tech of Luxembourg-based MDI company of Guy Nègre
http://www.theaircar.com/

Is there a drivable prototype of this thing? Has anyone from Motor Trend or Auto Week ever had a good look at it? For any real car, the prototypes precede volume production by several years.

Accusations of fraud are flying between the Air Car people.. Apparently there are two Air Car groups, and they don't get along.

Tata Motors has nothing on their web site about the "air car". They do have a page of their concept cars, and the Air Car isn't on there. They're coming out with the Tata Nano, at $2500. The Tata Nano is conventionally powered. There's an electric version of the Tata Ace mini-truck, and those should be coming to the US this year. But there is no Air Car or "City Cat" from Tata that I can find.

This looks like vaporware.

Finally something good to come out of France in awhile.

A better and cleaner solution is the "Air Car". Powered by compressed air.

The prototype is supposed to travel up to 150 miles off one fill up with a top speed of 60 mph.

When they hit final production, I think I'll be buying one just so I can laugh my ass off as I pass every gas station.

Maybe you'll feel a little better with this other Tata related news: http://www.theaircar.com/tata_agreement.html

Seems that they are also interested in the "air car". India indeed seems like a perfect market for such an experiment. And if it happened to work on a grand scale it would certainly also help this technology to overcome the most obvious problems reported here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_motor

I don't know - the cars at theaircar.com look pretty damn cool.
200km range, with a 3-4 minute refill time (at a *gas station, one day) or 3-4 hours with your own compressor at home.
That seems like plenty to me... Plus, they're going into production in 2008!

Another convenient thing is that we will still be able to call them gas stations....

Here is a pretty interesting idea about how to go about using that energy for transportation.

Instead of EV or Hybrid or Hydrogen, what about "Air"?

http://www.theaircar.com/

The bookbinding machine? That was mentioned on Slashdot previously. It's not that novel. Many of the bigger copiers/printers have a binder option. Larger Kinkos outlets can crank out perfect-bound books. The price and cost figures are vaporware; the bookbinding machine isn't actually in production. The Internet Archive has a printing and binding operation in a van (the "Internet Bookmobile"), and has for years. Uses a semi-auto binder.

The programmable water display is one of those cute one-off things. I've seen some similar gadgets, including a projection screen made of mist. That showed up at a venture capital conference in Silicon Valley a few months ago. Modulated water displays were done in Japan in the 1980s, and they've been tried in some US retail locations.

The "air car" has some grand claims. "For various reasons, one of which is industrial secrecy, we havent published all technical details on this site." Right. The thing is actually supposed to be a gasoline-powered hybrid - "The Series 34 CATs engines can be equipped with and run on dual energies - fossil fuels and compressed air". Plus, there's an electric motor and battery in there. "Parking manoeuvres are powered by the electric motor." It's not clear why they need both electrical and compressed air energy storage. The actual range they've achieved running on compressed air is only 7.2Km. All they actually have on the road is one prototype car made of welded tubes, with steel compressed air tanks driving an ordinary reciprocating compressor as an air motor. None of their claimed technology (the carbon fibre tanks, the wierd crankshaft linkage, the low-friction seals) is in use. They have a good Monster Garage project, but not a major invention.

The "40% more efficient gasoline engine" thing isn't new. See this 1979 article in Mother Earth News. Wikipedia has a good article on water injection, and there's a link to Crowder's engine. The general consensus today seems to be that turbos and intercoolers have made water injection obsolete. If you use water injection, you have to carry either a water tank about as big as the gas tank, or a condenser and oil/water separation system.

I'm not impressed with Time's selections. There must have been some better work this year, or we're in real trouble in technology.

Ok sorry, someone else typo'd. The MDI aircar site specifically states in several places a range of "200-300km".

e.g. http://www.theaircar.com/models.html

The air car runs on vapor (ie. air). They have been promising it for years. It keeps not happening. They did test one and were able to demonstrate a range of about five miles. They write about the tests and, citing possible improvements to the technology, go on to extrapolate the range out to about 170 miles.

http://www.theaircar.com/tests.html

The air car does have one important advantage over battery vehicles. Air tanks last a long time and don't involve nasty, polluting, expensive chemicals. Given the new, very strong carbon paper that was written up on /. the other day, the tanks could be quite cheap to manufacture. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/2 8/1526205&from=rss

Anyway, the battery car actually exists and does get a useful range. Its limitations are economic not technical.

It's a new technology that looks promising.

http://www.theaircar.com/

Funny, how when the American economy becomes progressively more regulated, the corporations become more and more privledged citizens... compared to the (relatively) laissez faire days of U.S. technological dominance.

The thing that the anti-corporate crowd doesn't seem to understand is that most legislation presented as "protecting us from corporations" is designed to HELP corporations. For example, what effect does FDA regulations, that drive drug testing cost up into the billions, have on the drug market? Well, it means you need a billion dollars to develop a single drug - and the only people who have a billion dollars to test a new drug are the big-pharma multinationals. So drug legislation that is presented as "protecting us from big-pharma" (and the anti-corporate crowd defend tooth and nail), essentially insures an oligarchy of big multinational corporations dominate drug development. It also means that no-one is able to develop drugs for poor people or developing countries, because the regulatory liabilities far outstrip any profit a company can make.

Same thing for automobile development. Why do we have such strict safety standards for automobiles? They say that regulations are designed to protect us from the big evil automotive manufactures. So what effect does the huge billion dollar barrier to entry for testing and liability have on the market? Once again, only a few huge multinational corporations have the billions of dollars in capital to comply with regulations... With the exception of small kit built firms, who are legally prevented from mass producing automobiles, it is impossible to start a new auto company in the U.S.. If you developed a new super-effient hybrid engine automobile, that would drasticly cut CO2 emmisions and help fight global warming, you would not be able to mass produce it and sell it - there is no way anyone could get the billions in capital you would need in order to comply with government regulations and liability. Perhaps you could licence the technology to the big auto companies, but I doubt it because they have a different agenda. The regulations that every Ralph Nadarite will insist are created to keep the big auto companies in check give them an oligarchy on automobile manufacturing. And in the long run, it hurts safety because new innovations from small companies are not allowed to come to market.

I want to buy a crazy French car that runs on air ( http://www.theaircar.com/ ), but they are too "unsafe" for use in the United States. Apparently huge metal monsters that smash apart anything in their path and destroy the envoirnment with CO2 are "safe", but these things aren't. Yeah, thanks for sticking it to those big corporations like Air Car, and protecting the little guys like Ford and GM, Ralph Nader!

The ascendancy of corporations in the U.S. is largely a product of the policies of misguided folks who think they are keeping the corporations in check, and are totally unclear that government regulation is an essential part of Corporatism! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism

Big Corporations love Big Government, and hate laissez faire.

And speaking of comparing the U.S. to Scandinavia... most Scandinavian countries have a LOWER corporate tax rate than the United States (which they make up for with a higher income tax). There are far fewer government regulations that companies need to comply with. The Swedish Social Democratic Party (who are supposedly "left wing socialists") can propose allowing citizens to invest 20% of their social insurance deductions into the free market and it isn't controversial at all, but in the supposedly "capitalist" United States even a Republican President and Congress can't allow U.S. citizens to invest 9% of their social security deductions into the free market without being accused of "trying to starve old people". It is a myth, an absolute myth, that the U.S. is somehow a "free market" country, and the Scan

Near the very bottom of http://www.theaircar.com/tests.html there is the table-section "Three-stage expansion with reheating with air at ambient temperature" When you quote "4 HP for less than seven minutes" - was that with three-stage expansion ? "Unpriced externalities" of inner-city air pollution include say the HEALTH CARE for the kids who get asthma due to the pollution, I have read about that in several independent places. So if the HUGE waste of energy was not quite so huge, and you include the pollution externalities, then the "whole system" economics might tip, hmm ?

300 bars of compressed air stored on board the vehicle, Is this dangerous for the passengers?

    Compressed air tanks have already been proven safe by one of our partners EADS(AIRBUS). This company's reputation in the aeronautical field is unprecedented, given the reliability of its tanks. What's more, the compressed air does not present any risk of explosion. Countless test have been carried out in the most extreme conditions (gun shoots, resistance to fire...) to guarantee passenger safety in every possible condition. The high pressure tanks have been developed using a similar technology to those used in natural gas vehicles and by firefighters. All are produced with carbon fiber over plastic.
    The tanks that MDI puts in its vehicles are similar to those already in use in natural gas busses in Germany and other countries

Actually according to this page they're talking about a tank of 300 litres at 300 bar resulting in 46 MJ and also a 340 litre tank with 52.1 MJ. So you're a bit short on power. In addition they're measuring distance in km not miles.

The air car was developed by MDI international from the efforts of the inventor Guy Nègre. More information on the development can be found at http://www.theaircar.com/aboutmdi.html

The history page shows pictures of this dream of a hybrid-engine, totally air-driven in-city: http://www.theaircar.com/genealogy.html It's not easy to find - the development roadmap details how they intend to reach the dream: http://www.theaircar.com/tests.html The technical details page reveals that they get 13% of the energy back by regenerative braking at present: http://www.theaircar.com/tecno.html Living in Phoenix, AZ the excellent free air-conditioning sounds SO good. Typically you sit at a stoplight, and your exhaust is heating and polluting your environment, which means your I/C-engine/air-conditioner needs to work even harder to fight the heat. With a stoplight-full of air-cars, your "waste cooling" would actually make your neighboring car somewhat COOLER - kind of the inverse of a bunch of Penguins(grin) in Antarctica.

The history page shows pictures of this dream of a hybrid-engine, totally air-driven in-city: http://www.theaircar.com/genealogy.html It's not easy to find - the development roadmap details how they intend to reach the dream: http://www.theaircar.com/tests.html The technical details page reveals that they get 13% of the energy back by regenerative braking at present: http://www.theaircar.com/tecno.html Living in Phoenix, AZ the excellent free air-conditioning sounds SO good. Typically you sit at a stoplight, and your exhaust is heating and polluting your environment, which means your I/C-engine/air-conditioner needs to work even harder to fight the heat. With a stoplight-full of air-cars, your "waste cooling" would actually make your neighboring car somewhat COOLER - kind of the inverse of a bunch of Penguins(grin) in Antarctica.

The history page shows pictures of this dream of a hybrid-engine, totally air-driven in-city: http://www.theaircar.com/genealogy.html It's not easy to find - the development roadmap details how they intend to reach the dream: http://www.theaircar.com/tests.html The technical details page reveals that they get 13% of the energy back by regenerative braking at present: http://www.theaircar.com/tecno.html Living in Phoenix, AZ the excellent free air-conditioning sounds SO good. Typically you sit at a stoplight, and your exhaust is heating and polluting your environment, which means your I/C-engine/air-conditioner needs to work even harder to fight the heat. With a stoplight-full of air-cars, your "waste cooling" would actually make your neighboring car somewhat COOLER - kind of the inverse of a bunch of Penguins(grin) in Antarctica.

300 bars of compressed air stored on board the vehicle, Is this dangerous for the passengers?

Compressed air tanks have already been proven safe by one of our partners EADS(AIRBUS). This company's reputation in the aeronautical field is unprecedented, given the reliability of its tanks. What's more, the compressed air does not present any risk of explosion. Countless test have been carried out in the most extreme conditions (gun shoots, resistance to fire...) to guarantee passenger safety in every possible condition. The high pressure tanks have been developed using a similar technology to those used in natural gas vehicles and by firefighters. All are produced with carbon fiber over plastic.

The tanks that MDI puts in its vehicles are similar to those already in use in natural gas busses in Germany and other countries.

If you dig around on MDI's website, you'll see that they're talking about filament-wound carbon fiber air tanks holding 400 bar pressures. Some folks are intimidated by such high pressures, but are completely comfortable sitting on top of a rather large gasoline or diesel tank. Considering the amount of energy stored in both cases, I'd rather have the compressed air and a proper scatter shield.

You don't have to put the panel on the car, you can put it on your home roof http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html. The cars take about 4 hours to charge with their on board compressors if that fits your driving habits.

You can get on a wait list for a car here http://www.theaircar.com/models_iwantone.html. NB, the solar link is also a wait list.

I think I'm going to wait for batteries in a car because that solves my back up power needs but this gets to my speed needs better than the zebra: http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=188.

Simple enough URL.
http://www.theaircar.com/howitworks.html

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How about an airZOOKA! http://www.backyardartillery.com/soft/

Unlike the majority of traditional cars on the market, MDIs vehicle's have fibreglass bodies which makes them light, silent urban car. The car's body is tubular, light weight, and is held together using aerospace technology.

This has been talked about before. The car was developed in Europe. Here is the developer's web site

You know, I'm starting to get the idea that it really WOULD kill the editors to actually edit something. This is of course proof that the Firehose cannot make up for the failings of idiot editors.

Now, if there were no links in TFA, then torok would have an excuse for not knowing that this vehicle was actually developed by Moteur Developpment International, or MDI. If you visit their site you can read MDI's press release about their deal with Tata. But in fact not only the technology but the entire vehicle was designed by MDI. Not only have they been using them in Mexico (Mexico City is the most polluted city on the planet) but they've been using them for some years in Spain.

Shame on you torok, and shame on you ScuttleMonkey. The former for falsely attributing the vehicle and technology to the undeserving; the latter for not doing his job and checking the story for validity.

You know, I'm starting to get the idea that it really WOULD kill the editors to actually edit something. This is of course proof that the Firehose cannot make up for the failings of idiot editors.

Now, if there were no links in TFA, then torok would have an excuse for not knowing that this vehicle was actually developed by Moteur Developpment International, or MDI. If you visit their site you can read MDI's press release about their deal with Tata. But in fact not only the technology but the entire vehicle was designed by MDI. Not only have they been using them in Mexico (Mexico City is the most polluted city on the planet) but they've been using them for some years in Spain.

Shame on you torok, and shame on you ScuttleMonkey. The former for falsely attributing the vehicle and technology to the undeserving; the latter for not doing his job and checking the story for validity.

I *do* believe that if you're downshifting, and don't have your foot on the gas pedal, that what is coming out of the engine is just compressed air. Is it pure enough to breathe? Probably not. Pure enough for an engine to breathe? As a supplement to the normal air intake? yeah.

Of course it's pure enough for the engine to breathe. I mean, we already use a system called EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) to feed exhaust gases into the intake at cruising speed, preheating the intake charge and increasing the efficiency of combustion. These are pre-cat exhaust gases so they are nice and dirty. But what you have to realize here is that the EGR is the most commonly fouled system under the hood. Any system involving exhaust gases and not involving intense heat (turbos get caked up a bit, but they run hot so they tend to burn off the more voltatile byproducts) is going to get choked up in short order. That includes your exhaust gas storage tank.

But is it any more efficient to add a completely separate drive-mechanism (electric) and storage (batteries) to gain the benefits of regenerative braking?

I suspect it is, if only because they're not using your idea, and they are using electrical systems to supplement gasoline ones. In fact there are major benefits to doing this. You probably know what some of them are. First, electric motors are incredibly more efficient than ICEs. The best ICE in the world is a two-story-tall diesel in a container ship that is 50% efficient (peak.) Your car is under 25%, and then there are drivetrain losses that can be up to 15% or so. But an electric motor such as those used in hybrids is around 90% efficient, and even around 85% efficient as a generator! Also, electric motors make peak torque at 0 RPM, so they enable us to use other types of gasoline engines, for example miller cycle engines which are only efficient at cruising RPM.

Frankly - I'm pretty sure that the future of cars is pure-electrics; we're just not there yet on batteries.

I don't know about that. The theoretical maximum energy density of a battery is still less than that of gasoline, butanol, biodiesel, etc. I think it actually makes more sense to use MDI's Air Car technology or similar. They have a PHEV that runs on compressed air. The range isn't very good and the car has to be superlightweight, but for most purposes (like commuting) it's very nearly an ideal system. And one huge benefit is that compressed air is easier to move in volume than electricity; not over long distances, to be sure, but from a filling station to your car? Absolutely. And the vehicles can be plugged in to mains current (last I checked only 220VAC, but I think they were about to get 110VAC up and going, and anyway this was a long time ago) to charge; tied into the transmission are both the air motor and an electric motor which generates power to run onboard components and also can be used to run the motor to fill the compressor. The energy density of compressed air is thus far even worse than batteries, but at least it's environmentally safe. Batteries are nasty.

Not sure if it makes a difference, but they run on both compressed air and fuel. I believe when they run on fuel they actually efill the air tanks at the same time, and then run on the air later. They seem to have a pretty innovative system that reuses energy. Not a phsyics or chemistry major though so I can't make a fair judgement, though at first glance at the site it appears to be a bit more involved than your post indicates.

http://www.theaircar.com/howitworks.html

The cleanest alternative seems to come from a little known company that created a compressed air motor. They use it in conjuction with a standard engine for starting the vehicle Few pollution whatsoever, you need a little bit of electricity to run a compressor, and get almost 2000 km in one go... here : http://www.theaircar.com/

Ah yes, the air car. One of the all-time classic recurring vaporware schemes. These guys have been claiming, for about a decade, to be having it ready "real soon now", yet they won't let anyone actually inspect their prototype, and the math doesn't work. Other than that, yuppers, it's sure a _clean_ alternative. Just not so good if you want to actually buy one.

just to shift the debate a bit...

Ethanol and bio-fuel pollute a little bit less, but do still exhaust CO2.

The cleanest alternative seems to come from a little known company that created a compressed air motor. They use it in conjuction with a standard engine for starting the vehicle

Few pollution whatsoever, you need a little bit of electricity to run a compressor, and get almost 2000 km in one go...

here : http://www.theaircar.com/

Maybe we should start getting interested in the technology, the drawback in electric cars being the pollution you create in actually producing the batteries and the electricity to feed them.

Also, as it uses very few fuel, the big petrol/car companies doesn't show any interest in the technology...

Da5Id

There are limits on how much energy you can store in a capacitor no matter what you do. The basic trick is to somehow increase the plate area while decreasing the spacing between the plates. You also need a material between the plates that will not break down due to the voltage. But no matter what you do, the breakover voltage goes down as you move the plates together.

A better approach might be to store the energy as compressed air. http://www.theaircar.com/ Of course the guys making the compressed air car seem to be stalled.

How about making fuel from turkey guts? http://www.changingworldtech.com/ We got all excited about them and they're sort of economic now.

How about desk top fusion?

So, I'm not holding my breath. One of my favorite sayings is: "There are liars, there are damn liars and then there are battery chemists." AFAICT that saying applies to this story.

It must be nice and comfy in your world.
I wouldn't know. I live in the real world.
The car I have is an older car and I can not afford a new car and never will be able to afford a new car.
IF I had the means, I would buy an air car http://www.theaircar.com/ and use solar panels to run the compressor for filling it.

To think that everyone either has a brand new car or should run out and buy one is silly.
I am one of the "have nots" and I struggle to get by on a day to day basis.
Being disabled is not my choice. I would like to be healthy and rich so I could buy nice new things but fate is my enemy in life. I make do. I shop at curbmart. To me it's a luxury to go to walmart and buy new socks for $4 and a new pair of $10 shoes. I bought new shoes last month when my old shoes came apart. I put duct tape on them but that was really too embarassing.

But, back to the main argument. There is no way in hell that burning an ounce of gasoline is making more pollution than burning a gallon of gasoline. To those that profess this "fact", please provide scientific, documented fact, with links, not conjecture.

And if you have such a problem with my plans for transportation, send me some money to buy a new car and some more money to keep the tank filled up, or, STFU... If you can't deal with MY situation then why don't you improve my situation so I don't have to do something that upsets you so badly.

NO offense to anyone but you can't even begin to imagine. Try being disabled for a while then get back with me.

So you'll have to wait.

Besides, for a few years there has been a cleaner, cheaper option to internal combustion engines:

http://www.theaircar.com/

Urban legends say the oil companies even threatened the guy who invented this air powered engine.
Not really surprising to me!.

I've been disappointed that Califorinia stopped their zero emmissions vehicles for hybrids. Mainly because I'd think that they'd be the only state that would want to bother with it. No one else seems to have pushed pure electric vehicles lately. I don't think a switch to hydrogen will work. A short term switch to hybrid will work, but still leaves us tied to oil. It would have been nice if electric vehicles were pushed if only to see how they compared with hybrids. We have plenty of energy stocks other than oil, which is one reason why they are pushing hydrogen. The same reasoning could be put forward for electric vehicles though as well.

To me, the major appeal of hydrogen (until fuel cell technology ramps up to the point where it's a lot cheaper) is being able to run it in existing engines. It's not a minor undertaking, but it takes a lot less energy to convert a car to hydrogen than to build a new car. Ford converted some vehicle (forget what it was, maybe a focus, or a taurus? I think it was some -us car) to hydrogen by installing high compression pistons and an electric supercharger - yes, they do exist, crap like the e-Ram notwithstanding. Of course, they also had to modify the fuel delivery system, since they were going from liquid gasoline to gaseous hydrogen.

The problem with EVs, and of course hybrids as well, is the batteries. They take a great deal of energy to create, they don't last forever and are expensive to recycle, and they are full of nasty-ass chemicals. Also, they're more dangerous in a lot of ways than chemical fuel (not all ways of course) because they can give up their energy so much more quickly. They also have not-inconsiderable weight, and charging them is a serious proposition no matter how you look at it.

Butanol is here now, can be made from any organic waste, reduces emissions as compared to gasoline, and can utilize our existing fueling infrastructure.

Ultimately, I think compressed air (as in the MDI air car is probably as strong a contender as electric, and has numerous advantages that, frankly, electric does not, including a simpler, more practical fueling infrastructure.

Skip the hydrogen and the combustion. Use your solar powered sterling engine or your solar cells to drive a small air compressor which keeps a larger tank topped off in your garage. Your car will run on compressed air.

http://www.theaircar.com/

This will be vaporware, mark my words. It all looks very fishy, like a possible investment scam. Like cars that run on compressed air... http://www.theaircar.com/

Project revolves around an engine that can run of compressed air up to a certain speed, and uses a mixture of petrol and gas to push the speed further.

So... running on compressed air, the tank can be refilled of a compressor (yes, that'll be really useful when someday our electricity is derived from clean-er sources) and the overall amount of petrol needed to drive around is reduced.

I've been following the project with interest. I can't do much to help these guys, though... just thought I'd get the project mentioned again and hopefully their effort will rise a few eyebrows.

Actually, a french man named Guy Negre invented an engine and car that runs on air. They've been trying to get this stuff on the roads for a good number of years actually:

• http://www.theaircar.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Engine

Those big yellow busses (which are not very yellow) eat up a HUGE amount of diesel. why not have the state invest some cash into alternative fules. City buses run on natural gas, which is far cheaper then diesel. Air powered engines are also available from the french manufacturer MDI - http://www.theaircar.com/

And last i heard there are some busses in vancouver that are running on hydrogen. Im not exactly sure if they are as profitable as natural gas but still, alot cleaner.

http://www.theaircar.com/

It seems like a real bad idea to start 'eating' your global water supply as fuel for anything (other than offspring).

Somewhere someone wrote a report that switching to a hydrogen based economy may eventually lead to the loss of free hydrogen to space, as some of it escapes through the upper atmosphere. Their basis was that some hydrogen will not combust and be lost.

Liquid water and carbon are the foundation for life on earth. Mars is nice, but it's really dry and a bit cold.

I look forward to buying a hybrid car that partially runs on compressed air:
http://www.theaircar.com/

And like jurassic park says life 'has a way' of finding work arounds against human safeguards.
Making bacteria that rapidly break down water is a very, very bad idea.

One might joke about running an automobile on this pressure alone.

One might, but it's not a joke...

Ok that's it. I'm buying myself an aircar

As an aside, generating compressed air can also be done mechanically from renewable sources like hydro and wind so there is no energy conversion loss there either. The same mechanical energy that is being harvested will be applied at your wheels when you step on the "gas" with only minor losses due to friction and moving parts.

I'm not clear on whether regenerative braking would still work

Without a permanent magnet, you have no field to generate the electric current that would recharge your storage medium (battery, flux capacitor, what have you). If the regenerative breaking is to be electric, then the use of these motors would require the additional use of generators.

As an aside, the air car is an alternative concept where the engine could also function as an air compressor for regenerative breaking purposes.