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STUDY: Air cars not worth it

Compressed air-powered cars like the AirPod pictured above are conceptually cool. But the real-world efficiency of using compressed air to move a vehicle just isn't worth is, says a new study published in the latest issue of Environmental Research Letters. The main problem, one of the study's authors told AutoblogGreen, is that compressed air holds less than one percent of the energy of gasoline and, given the amount of electricity it takes to compress the air, "the air car's carbon footprint is more than twice as large as that of a ... Read more →

Magnetic Air Car "does not violate the laws of energy conservation or the basic principles of thermodynamics" Sebastian Blanco

When a news article about a new car starts with this line – "Vehicle currently in development requires no fuel, no external charging" – it makes us worry. We're not exactly big fans of ...

Driving the airless Air Car could be a better experience Sebastian Blanco

Last December, Green Car Advisor's Nick Kurczewski was able to snag a ride in MDI's AIRPod. Now, the lucky punk journalist has taken a turn behind the wheel. The short version of his review: this ...

Half of London's police cars will go alternative within 4 years Jeremy Korzeniewski

According to Autocar in the UK, Scotland Yard has announced plans to replace half of its fleet of vehicles with either electric or air-powered vehicles within four years. We're not sure what ...

Taking a ride in the Air Car Sebastian Blanco

A rear seat that faces backwards. Powered by compressed air. Name like the AirPOD and FlowAIR. A windshield that doubles as the door. There are a lot of hurdles that MDI's compressed air line of ...

AirPod to the United States by 2011? 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Echoing rumors that we've been hearing all year is a news story from Kiplingers that we ran across on Yahoo Financial suggesting again that air-powered vehicles will be available in the U.S. within a few years time. Instead of larger cars, though, we could get the little three-wheeled, ...

Skepticism about MDI's AirCar FlowAir promises 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

One of France's most prestigious auto magazines, L'Auto Journal, has published a very skeptical and critical report about Guy Nègre's MDI compressed air car, whether we call it the AirCar or FlowAir. The article (not available online) makes quite a number of arguments against MDI and the ...

MDI's AIRPod coming to New Zealand 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Looking like just about every other three-wheeled, joystick-controlled, compressed air-driven car we've ever seen, the AIRPod by MDI will be available to lease in New Zealand soon. MDI has an agreement with IndraNet Technologies to market them in the land of the M?ori and, according to an article ...

MDI's AirCar get a new name, now called the FlowAIR 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

We've already been scolded this year not to call the air car the Air Car. The nomenclature is not getting any easier, but hopefully we've reached the last rebranding of the "Compressed Air Vehicle." An update to the MDI website tells us that the vehicle line up now has a "FlowAIR" theme. The models ...

MDI puts the first AirCar on the road 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

We heard that MDI, the creators of the AirCar - excuse us, the "Compressed Air Vehicle" - broke off all commercial relations with Miguel Celades, who had been carrying its commercial operations for a while. We tried multiple times to contact Mr. Celades for further explanations, but couldn't. So, ...

Brickmasters, represent: working LEGO V8 engine is powered by air 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Click on the image for more shots of the LEGO V8 engine digg_url = 'http://digg.com/environment/working_LEGO_V8_engine_is_powered_by_Air'; There has been a huge amount of interest in air powered cars since MDI began showing its creation off a few years back. There is a lot of engineering that ...

Most promising green technologies number nine: compressed air 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

Who would have thought that a concept as simple as compressed air could be a viable automotive technology? Sure, we all fill our tires with the stuff, but some automakers - MDI, for one - are considering compressed air as an energy carrier, like a battery. Whether a vehicle is engineered to run ...

New York 2008: We sit down with Milner Motors to talk AirCar and ElectriCar 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

When we first encountered the Milner Motors ElectriCar yesterday, we just did a quick flyby with out cameras and then headed off to other events. Later in the afternoon, we returned for a 15 minute chat with Chris Milner, the AirCar inventor's son and a partner in the company. He talked about the ...

Air Car Factories also working on compressed-air vehicles 1 year ago on Autoblog Green

One of my first tasks here in ABG was interviewing Miguel Celades. For a long time, Celades was Guy Nègre's sales partner in the development of the Air Car. Now, though, Nègre is now working with Tata Motors; he and Celades canceled their business partnership a few months ago (check ...

Air Car's first manufacturing plant will be located in Melbourne, cars sold in Australia next year 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

Guy Negre and Louis Arnoux of MDI-Energy, the company behind the air car, are in Melbourne, Australia, demonstrating the air car technology to government and potential investors as part of a five year, $1.5 B plan to make and sell the cars in Australia, according to the Age. The first plant will be ...

The Air Car Can Blow You Away 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

If you inflate a balloon and place it on a little toy car frame and then release it, it will race across the room until the balloon deflates. That is essentially the idea of engineer Guy Negre of MDI in . Popular Science magazine reports he is working with an Indian company to put about 6000 Air ...

A new agreement between Tata Motors and MDI bring the air-car closer to reality 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

We have shown you the air-car before, and you may have seen it on TV if you watched the Discovery Channel series, Future Car. If you did, you witnessed them erroneously refer to the possibility of perpetual motion in reference to the air-car. While there is no perpetual motion at work here, there ...

Future Cars on Discovery highlights fuels of the future 2 years ago on Autoblog Green

I was pretty excited about the show "Future Cars" on Discovery show when I found out about it. And, thankfully, I have not been disappointed. I wrote about the show before it actually started, and we are now three weeks into the series. The last episode, number three, is of particular interest to ...

Old video of air-powered car making the rounds at YouTube 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

Funny how what's old becomes new again, thanks to the archiving power of sites like YouTube. A seven-and-a-half minute video clip from CNN (a global or international version of the news network, by the looks of it) that was posted to YouTube in February just got picked up by MobileMag. The video is ...

Air-powered car in France can go 120 miles per charge 3 years ago on Autoblog Green

Author Joel Barker of the website and book called Five Regions of the Future points us to the Air Car, which uses compressed air (and no emissions) to run the engine. The company producing the car, Moteur Developpment International, says they will begin selling the cars in Barcelona, but they are ...

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