Interview puts 2008 release date of MDI's Air Car in doubt
Recently, I posted a video of a BBC News report with the exciting news MDI would release their compressed powered air car in 2008. I assumed such an early release was largely due to Tata's connection to MDI but according the Mumbai Mirror, Tata now says the air car is "two years away." I said I doubted a release by MDI alone.In an earlier comment to AutoblogGreen, The Oil Drum said they planned an interview with MDI this week and they would ask about the release date. The Oil Drum's interview is now online and it seems to have confirmed my fears. According to MDI's Louis Arnoux, the 2008 release of the air car depends on further investment and plants that won't even make cars (at first). Here is the full question and response:
Question: When will construction of the manufacturing facility in Melbourne commence?
Answer: That depends on investment levels and MDI's delivery timetable. At present rate I am expecting establishing a first manufacturing facility during the second half of 2008 and being in full production in 2009. Initially, our focus is going to be on producing power generators, then we plan to move on the automotive applications.
Also very concerning is that MDI seems to think they can pass safety tests fairly quickly. You can read the full question and response below the fold. I'm no expert on how the Australians make things and certify products but I seriously doubt MDI will pull it off a release this year. Even with sufficient investment, I would expect this process to take several years at least. Considering this is very new technology, I don't think five years or more is out of the question.
[Source: The Oil Drum]
Question: How long do you believe it will take to obtain approval from the various Australian state vehicle licencing Authorities ? Has crash testing been undertaken and approved by Australian authorities ? What would happen if an air tank is ruptured ?
Answer: MDI is constantly monitoring regulations world wide and designing each feature of its vehicle to meet the most exacting of all specifications. So I do not expect any significant issue to obtain approval in Australia. The OneCAT will have very innovative design features concerning crash safety. Nothing much would happen in case of a tank rupture. The tanks are underneath the car floor, built within the chassis frame and design to bleed towards the ground in case of a rupture; so just a big "pshiiiit".
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Didier 4:15PM (9/20/2008)
You are completely right, Ben!
If you want to know more about the cars, have a look at www.aircars.tk
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Charlie 10:52PM (1/01/2009)
No longer in doubt. Another year has gone by. Another year without MDI ever delivering a single vehicle.
This has been true ever since the BBC article in 2000 where MDI and Zero Pollution Motors announced their intentions to have an air car in salerooms in South Africa in 2002, with production in France to start in late 2000.
http://tinyurl.com/zeropollutionmotors1
Although there are many You Tube videos of cars puttering around at slow speed in the MDI parking lot, there has never been an independent road test. Why after all of these years of "production soon" has MDI never let a car magazine take the car for a road test.
Perhaps it is because they have never made a car that comes anywhere near their claimed specifications. We won't know though, since independent tests have not been done, even though it only take a couple hours to do the typical road test of checking acceleration, ride quality, noise, top speed, and operating range.
My guess is that not meeting the operating range specification is why MDI has repeatedly failed to make planned mass production starts over the years. The only test of operating range that I could find was on an archived webpage. MDI no longer has the info on their website.
http://tinyurl.com/mditestresults shows their prototype vehicle running out of compressed air after only 7.22km (less than 5 miles).
I wonder why MDI doesn't let journalists do independent road tests? I wonder why MDI has never published updated test results of their pilot production vehicles?
I wonder why MDI has never put the e.Volution air car, or the Eolo car, or the many other cars into production. They just let the projects disappear with nary and explanation of what happened. Perhaps MDI, rightly, assume that most people will soon forget about their past promises.
The next missed date will be when MDI fails to deliver the AirPod vehicles to Air France for tests this coming Spring 2009,
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Charlie 4:21PM (9/12/2009)
Yep. As I suspected would happen, MDI missed the Spring 2009 scheduled date for a pilot production run of 50 AirPods and delivery of a dozen AirPod to Air France and KLM Engineering for testing.
So far MDI has continued their nearly 10 year old record of never delivering a car in spite of an almost yearly announcement that sales start "next year".
Oh .... sales of the AirPod have been delayed and are now scheduled to start "next year". Guy Negre says January or February 2010, or March 2010 at the very latest.
Unless something exciting happens, my next post will be in April 2010.
Charlie 10:22AM (11/08/2009)
The introduction in 2008 is no longer in doubt. It didn't happen.
As for an introduction in 2009, it is very unlikely that it will happen either.
MDI is no longer in the X-prize competition. No public info on why.
The Spring 2009 pilot lot production of AirPods didn't happen.
The Spring 2009 trials of AirPods by KLM Air France have not yet started and apparently delayed until at least January 2010.
MDI is now claiming that the AirPod will be introduced in the 1st quarter of 2010.
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Ben 11:14PM (1/21/2008)
I am disappointed the MDI air car won't be in production as soon as was first hoped for. I am not completely discouraged. Consider the Tesla is not on time with production, nor the XR-3 hybrid...and don't forget the Volt! What each of these vehicles need is continued R&D which unfortunately does cost money. Meanwhile the greater number of people involved in these efforts, the greater the chance it will happen. Isn't there an X-prize entrant whose car can run on compressed air? If only the vast money and lives lost to protect our oil investment had instead gone to renewables and even a fraction to air cars, we'd be having a different conversation and not TRAPPED in Iraq.
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