WPCNR HOT ROD NEWS. By John F. Bailey. February 13, 2008: Picking up the BBC World
News telecast last night, I was stunned to see a BBC report on the MDI Air Car. The MDI Air Car has
been developed for the Luxembourg-based firm, MDI by Guy Negre, the former designer of Formula
One race cars. (Talk about a man using his powers for good?)
While General Motors has been developing a vehicle based on hydrogen that they
cannot get to market yet for at least four years (it is being tested in White Plains), MDI is
scheduled to put 6,000 Air Cars into use in India this August, to be manufactured by
India's leading automobile manufacturer, Tata Motors.
Have you filled up this week?
If you have a Toyota Corolla gas-efficient vehicle you pay $3.31 a gallon up to $3.49. If you’re using
high test, $3.95. The cost of filling up an Air Car is $2. Popular Mechanics reports that the
fiberglass construction of the Air Car would not survive crash tests hereso it will probably
not each the U.S. Market. How convenient!
How utterly outrageous that the Air Car has been not developed by American auto
manufacturers. An American body on the MDI Technology would certainly take care
of the crash problem. If I am the next President, I get Guy Negre on the phone on Day
One of my administration and move these babies.
Ominously, for an American motorcar manufacturers, their foreign partners and their
"traditional dirty" vehicles is that MDI has signed up twelve more countries to bring
in their Air Car, including Germany, Israel and South Africa. If the Air Car with its
economy of operation and n evironment-protective fuel source delights the foreign
markets, the internal combustion gasoline engine could become a thing of the past.
Goodbye Oil. So long, Shieks.
The statistics on the Air Car if it ever gets to the United States would mean the end
of oil as we know it. The Air Car “CitiCat” model pictured in this article – a typical
SUV design can go 68 miles an hour and has a range of 125 miles. An electric
compressor inside the car allows you to re-air the car. Now, 125 miles is not the
typical 330 miles I get in my Toyota Corolla, but wait. Mr. Negri is working on a
hybrid version that puts a gasoline-fueled compressor into the car you plug in an
electrical outlet that re-airs your tanks within 4 hours.
Sort of like recharging your cellphone.
Dramatic Reduction in Accidents.
Another exciting thing about an Air Car is that it does not exceed 70 miles per hour.
This would mean substantially increased safety on the roads. As this reporter has
observed in the past, American motorists exceed the speed limit substantially even
when sober, or when the roads are ice-slick (like this morning) is what makes
driving a car the most dangerous legal thing you can do in America as a cause of
death particularly among young people.
But it is not new folks. That's the Crime.
The MDI site presents a history of compressed air vehicles showing
(www.theaircar.com) a sorry story of the bias towards big oil and internal combustion
pollution tradition.
Safety, Emissions-Free and Economy -- so naturally American ignores it.
This Air Car fascinates me. The BBC report notes it can go 75 miles an hour, run on
compressed air to drive the pistons and apparently could serve as an excellent
commuter car that would dramatically reduce carbon emissions. This is certainly the
major problem America has today if we want to preserve the planet for the future
and protect the ozone layer. One roadtrip across America will showl you how utterly
daunting the task of cutting down on auto emissions is going to be.
It is a comment on the selfish aspect of capitalism that the oil companies and the
automobile manufacturers have fought limiting emissions for decades, and now,
when it may be too late for the planet, they are touting hydrogen cars, hybrids, and
the like.
But America's motor car answers are not ready for market. They are not ready folks.
We need them now.
I’d like to see the anchors handling the next debate ask each candidate: Mr. McCain,
Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton, precisely what they are going to do to cut down
emissions at least 50% in the next decade. How are they going to slap the auto makers
and oil companies upside the head and save the world?
As the MDI website points out, air combustion powered vehicles are not new.
Air combustion was first introduced in 1687.
Pneumatic locomotives were introduced at the end of the 1800s!
The first urban transport locomotive run on compressed air debuted in 1898 from
Hoadley and Knight.
The H. K. Porter company of Pittsburgh sold hundreds of Charles Hodges’
compressed air car. The mining industry in the eastern United States bought them
and used them extensively.
In 1930, the first hybrid diesel and compressed air locomotive was introduced in
Germany. The website notes, “The pressures brought to bear by the oil industry on
the transport sector were ever greater and the truth of the matter is they managed
to block investigation into this field.”
To view this page go to http://www.theaircar.com/acf/air-cars/compressed-air-history.html
