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Why not try a car powered by compressed air.

It looks like MDI is finally rolling these machines into production. They have a range of 120 miles, (or 10 hours in urban conditions) and have a top speed of 60-75 MPH. I remember reading about this technology in WIRED a few years ago, and it looks like it might be ready to go!

I am about to buy a car myself so I want to share some links you may find useful. I will personally buy a regular Honda Civic since that's all I can afford.

1. If you want to see the greenest cars out there, and the meanest too, check out greenercars.com

2. If you are tight on your budget, consider getting the rare Civic HX, which has CVT transmission and is very fuel efficient. There are other makes that make cars with CVT, so you might want to look around.

3. Check out the site for compressed-air cars. Sounds funny, but they are already into production.

4. About the Honda Insight. I would seriously consider a Civic Hybrid instead. The Insight is definitely not comfortable, but ranks first on greenercars.com. Another thing about the Insight is that it is a very "political" car. Honda loses about $1000 on every Insight it sells. Just imagine the ad fees that you'll be charged if you buy one. Therefore, I won't be surprised if this model is discontinued after a few years. The Civic, on the other hand, is a much better competitor to the Prius and is definitely here to stay.

Good luck with getting a green car! We need more people like you and not the drive-an-11mpg-SUV people. :)

Electric cars are held back by a few huge factors. Environmentally, they require batteries and huge amounts of energy to recharge them. They are not capable of long distances, and recharge times are long.

If I had to bet on a new "green" car, it would be the e.Volution. Sorry name, but a great product. Take known principles of internal combustion engines and use compressed air to cause expansion rather than explosive fuel. Plus, it's not vaporware, and the people pushing the car are *against* having distribution channels and whatnot. Check out their website at http://www.zeropollution.com/zeropollution/index.h tml.

Check this out

http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/guynegre.html

and

http://www.zeropollution.com/zeropollution/index.h tml

basically it's an air compressed car that goes at about 60mph top speed that can go for about 120 miles between charges. To charge it you basically plug it in an electrical outlet, and the compressor compresses the air to fill the tank.

It's also interesting that, due to some carbon filters, the exhaust air is cleaner than the air that goes in ;)

I wonder why there's not more buzz about it, it seems really cool for short range movements, I know if I had one I would surely use it for the work/home commute...

Whether the first factory exists isn't clear from the web site, but since the only factory picture shown is an architectural rendering, I doubt it.

Actually, it says here that it runs on compressed air at speeds under 60km/h (37mph) and on "traditional fuel" at higher speeds. Actually a cool feature, to be able to switch like that...

This car doesn't run on compressed air. It runs on gasoline or diesel fuel. The compressed air tank is used to provide supercharging for an internal combustion engine of unusual design. It's a highly supercharged lean-burn engine, but that's not "zero pollution". There are no reports of third-party tests of the engine, although prototype vehicles are pictured. (You'd think that if it worked they'd at least drive it to a service station that has smog-measurement equipment.) It's not clear why this arrangement is supposed to be better than an ordinary supercharger.

Nor does the factory exist. They're still trying to get financing. They claim to be able to build a factory for $8 million, which is very low for an auto plant.

Something is bogus here.

This car doesn't run on compressed air. It runs on gasoline or diesel fuel. The compressed air tank is used to provide supercharging for an internal combustion engine of unusual design. It's a highly supercharged lean-burn engine, but that's not "zero pollution". There are no reports of third-party tests of the engine, although prototype vehicles are pictured. (You'd think that if it worked they'd at least drive it to a service station that has smog-measurement equipment.) It's not clear why this arrangement is supposed to be better than an ordinary supercharger.

Nor does the factory exist. They're still trying to get financing. They claim to be able to build a factory for $8 million, which is very low for an auto plant.

Something is bogus here.

This car doesn't run on compressed air. It runs on gasoline or diesel fuel. The compressed air tank is used to provide supercharging for an internal combustion engine of unusual design. It's a highly supercharged lean-burn engine, but that's not "zero pollution". There are no reports of third-party tests of the engine, although prototype vehicles are pictured. (You'd think that if it worked they'd at least drive it to a service station that has smog-measurement equipment.) It's not clear why this arrangement is supposed to be better than an ordinary supercharger.

Nor does the factory exist. They're still trying to get financing. They claim to be able to build a factory for $8 million, which is very low for an auto plant.

Something is bogus here.

Wired magazine had this report about the same air-powered car company back in May of 1999. They reported that Mexico was going to buy some 40,000 of these things to use as taxis in Mexico City. Anyone know if this sale actually happened?

Few more links: www.zeropollution.com , www.globalstewards.org/aircar.htm
As far as I know (I have read article on that subject 2 years ago), they was supposed to use that technology in Mexico to replace most of gas powered taxi. More information can be gathered searching "cqfd air solution", the name of the company which develop the technology.

According to the company itself they're using 300 litres of air at 300 bar to carry 5 people 200km. I just don't see how they can possibly do that on compressed air alone.

-Marcel

Anyone firing up their local search engine should have found Zero Pollution Motors, the manufacturers of this car. Northerlight has a special report article on it in October last year. According to this site a taxi version was first road tested in Franch in May 1998. I also read somewhere that Mexico City is looking at replacing its entire fleet of 40000 taxis where these vehicles.

The original article, and the bbc articles listed here didn't really go into it, but it does operate as a combustion engine at speeds of over 50kmh or so (if i'm recalling what i read a few weeks ago correctly, anyway.)

They also show three different models of the thing...a station wagon of sorts, the taxi, and a pickup truck. (look here)

Max speed was about 63mph, which still isn't too bad.

I don't know how well it would do here in the states, but I know I'd bloody well buy one (and maybe another for the wife) at the prices they are initially talking about. That is however, a big if. :P

According to the website of the company designing these things: zeropollution.com, the reason why it will run 10 hours in the city is because the brakes are on some sort of generator system which drives an internal air compressor.

This thing is actually pretty damned cool. I was really skeptical about it when I first ran across it a few weeks ago, but I think I've some idea how it works. Check out the url above for all sorts of interesting info, with a diagram of the engine (I don't think the spark plug is used during the air-only phase of operation...that's what confused me at first.)

Also, be sure and check out their planned factories. Instead of building huge factories ala Ford/GM, they want to put small factories producing a few thousand units a year outside big cities...I don't know how that would fly over here, but it's intriguing.

It puts out about 25 hp, which ain't much...but when your fuel is air....

Besides, these would make dandy emergency generators. Just hook up a number of small air tanks, a few solar cells, a compressor, etc. etc.

Here is the Company that makes the Air powered cars.

Someone please mirror important stuff before it gets dotted.

http://www.zeropollution.com/zeropollution/index.h tml

Check out Zero pollution
Apparently the Mexican govt has ordered 1000's of these to replace taxis.