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Tata Intends To Sell Air-Powered Car In India
Diggester writes "Tata Motors (an Indian car manufacturer) is changing things up with the first car to run on air, the Airpod. The Airpod's technology was originally created in France at Motor Development International but has since been bought by Tata in hopes of bringing it to the Indian consumer car market. With virtually zero emissions and at the cost of about a penny per kilometer, it is definitely one of the most environmentally and economically friendly vehicles in the world. The tank holds about 175 liters of compressed air that can be filled at special stations or by activating the on-board electric motor to suck air in from the outside. Costing about $10,000, this car could beat out most smart cars from the market." If flying cars aren't available, sucking cars seem like a nice stop-gap.
..so when are they going to do it, like, for real?
This is not an original concept! SEE: http://www.aircaraccess.com/history.htm Brief quote: For half a century the air-powered locomotive was a serious contender for the top spot in transportation because of its obvious advantages: simplicity, safety, economy, and cleanliness. Air engines were built first during a period of experimental daily use in metropolitan street transit during the 1880s and 1890s, by companies organized by inventors and air car advocates such as General Herman Haupt. In New York City a building-sized 1500 horsepower compressing station was constructed for the use of the transit locomotives that were being tested there on daily routes. Air-powered mining locomotives were manufactured routinely by steam locomotive companies. Until the 1930s and 1940s the air mule had no serious competition from electric or internal combustion engines in mining because the heat and spark made them unsafe in closed-in and gassy places. The term "air engine" disappeared from engineering textbooks between 1931 when William Lawrence Saunders died, and the end of the second world war. Gas engines had been perfected, the power of the oil industry was established, and gas was cheap.
leather-dog muksihs
Blog: @muksihs
All this is is a blogger recycling a CNN YouTube from 2010 to get some clicks (worked astoundingly well!). And according to Wikipedia, it's been vapor since 2000.
... everybody loves inflatable tatas!
FCKGW 09F9 42
India's poor are too busy sleeping on the street or grazing their goat at the side of the freeway to turn their noses up at anything.
Are you trying to tell me what I saw with my own eyes?
I went to India late last year, to multiple cities. I directly observed these things, street sleepers in vast numbers, families living in makeshift shelters at the side of the road, people grazing animals in the central reservations.
These may be cliches, they may even be preconceptions, but they are very true in modern India.
Bart Simpson: I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows.
Appropriately, from the episode "Screaming Yellow Honkers".
I believe what GP means is that there is a market for this car. India's middle class alone is larger than most first world countries population.
I would probably buy one, and I live in the US. It would depend on how much it costs to run the pump and get a full tank.
Back in 2000 I was driving a gas guzzling huge SUV. When gas was consistently cheap it was never a real consideration for me. That changed in a hurry with the gas prices. Bought several Priuses since then, and lately I have reorganized my life so that I have to travel dramatically less.
In the last two years I walk to the grocery store. I buy less food (only what I can carry), have lost considerably weight, and eat better.
My work commute is 5-8 minutes. No problems doing that in a little car like that, especially if it is zero emissions, good for the environment, and cheap to operate.
I tend to stick close to home, ride a bike for long distances, and generally have changed my spending habits and how I relax. This kind of car actually fits to my lifestyle, and I don't think I would be the only one. Betting there is a market in the US as well.
I wish people would stop perpetuating that myth. Middle class has nothing to do with USD anywhere that isn't in the US. Here in China you can lead what is basically an upper class lifestyle on less than $10k USD a year because the cost of living in much of China is that low. I don't get paid in USD and I don't buy things in USD so using that as some sort of measuring stick makes no sense.
What's more in the US they've deliberately used inflation to pick the pockets of anybody not rich enough to have a sizable portion of their savings in investments.
Now compare this with the costs of conventional cars, which they currently buy and you will see the poster you are criticizing is right. Truth is, there is a huge market in India for conventional cars, despite the low average income of its citizens, and conventional cars are more expensive than this.
The flaw in your analysis is that you forget India Population is just well above a billion people, so even a relatively small percentage of the population is still a lot of people.
Only about 20% of the Indian population is of anywhere near middle class status.
The situation varies from state to state - in my state Kerala you can conclude 70% is middle class and Kerala population is on a long term decline (like Japan), health and development indexes are comparable to European nations etc.
The situation is the opposite in rural Bihar and other big northern states.
But the 20% officially middle class is a huge number - little less than the population of United States. Still if marketers and consultants conclude they are going to buy plastic crap from China in huge numbers they will be disappointed.
Western corporations regularly make an entry to India. The first mistake they make - overprice their products and Indian competition kills them on a price point. The second mistake they make is in overestimating the consumption patterns and excess inventory gets piled up - example: original Reebok and NIke shoes end up sold on the footpath.
But I have a fascination for the management and MBAs running these organizations. They are so clueless the errors they make are laughably stupid. Compared to them George Bush was a genius.
Tat Tvam Asi
A good point. People often ask me how my salary in Iceland compares to my last salary in the US, and my answer is usually, in short, "it's irrelevant on its own". The long answer is "it's complicated", followed by a long discussion of the different tax rates, the different compensation structures, the different benefits (company, union, and national), the different cost of living in different regards, and on and on. It's very hard to quantify. It's much easier to just say, "I live reasonably well and enjoy life" or soforth.
Powell: "So, what are we doing?" Cheney: "Oh, crime." Powell: "Crime? Good, OK... crime..."
Hey, things are getting much better here in Georgia. We can actually buy beer/wine in select locations on a Sunday now. That's progress!
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me