Tata Motors, once derided as the company with a name that sounds like it ought to be spread on a Fillet-o-Fish, has been making some serious forward movement in the past year or two.
Now, hot on the heels of its recent acquisition of Land Rover and Jaguar, and news of the impending assault on the European market with the Tata Nano, the Indian company is set to release a car powered entirely by air. But is it all hot air? (You see what I did there.)
Turns out it’s very much a legitimate prospect. Sure, it looks bloody ordinary, but let’s look beyond the styling for the moment. The MiniCAT (Compressed Air Technology), invented by French madman and ex-F1 engineer Guy Negre and his company Motor Development International (MDI), is a lightweight fibreglass urban car built around a tubular chassis which is glued together rather than welded. More importantly than that, and as you’ve no doubt gathered, it’s powered entirely by compressed air.
Around 6000 of these zero-emissions Air Cars are planned to blow onto Indian streets by August 2009.
Tata’s Air Car, which MDI calls a MiniCAT, is expected to cost the equivalent of $8177 in India, and would have a range of about 300km between refuels—an event which, due to the fact you’re only paying for the power needed to work the compressor, would cost around $2. Until the market for this car is properly developed though, owners will find included a small compressor which can be connected to any regular power supply, and will refill the tank within 3-4 hours.
If all that weren’t enough, the Air Car’s lack of a combustion engine means that the need for regular oil changes is a thing of the past, as new oil is only needed every 50,000km. That’s one very welcome extra zero on the end.
Here’s some nifty bullet points for you.
• The Air Car runs a specially developed piston engine that uses a new thermo dynamic cycle offering exceptional energy efficiency.
• Compressed air is stored in carbon fibre tanks, at 300 bar (4,351 psi).
• The CAT engine operates on four cycles: intake and compression, combustion, expansion, and exhaust.
• Outside air is drawn into the compression chamber and compressed to 20 bar (290 psi). At the highest point of pressure (at ‘top dead centre’), this air reaches 400°C (centigrade), and, at that point, air from the storage tank is injected into the combustion chamber.
• Since the injected air is much colder than the compressed air in the chamber, the injected air is heated instantaneously, causing a sudden expansion, which pushes the piston down (in an expansion stroke)
• The air tanks fitted to the underside of the vehicle can hold 300 litres of compressed air, capable of driving the MiniCAT for up to 200km.
• Using a household electrical source, it takes about 4 hours for the vehicle to refill its own compressed air tanks (a rapid three minute recharge is possible using an external high-pressure air pump.
• The MiniCAT runs an electronically controlled continuously variable transmission (CVT)
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this is the fantastic technology,i am also the engineer.
Yes, this is “fantastic” technology, but in the sense that so far it has been a fantasy.
The only road test results MDI has ever published of their prototypes showed it running out of air after only 7.22km.
http://tinyurl.com/mditestresults
They have announced “production in 12-24 months” almost every year since 2000. They have never gone into production, and nobody seems to know what happened to the past plans. http://tinyurl.com/mdi2004
http://tinyurl.com/zeropollutionmotors1
http://tinyurl.com/zeropollutionmotors2
The road test results where the car ran out of air after only 7.22km is in my opinion a very important document, and it is unfortunate that MDI took it off their website and didn’t replace it with any new info.
The main technical obstacle to compressed air vehicles is the low energy storage density of air. In other words, it take a large, heavy tank of air to store the same energy as one can easily store in a battery.
The last info I have seen directly from Tata was a statement by the head of their passenger car division saying that the MDI technology was not ready for production in the near future.
MH — it takes 4 hours using the onboard engine as a compressor (with the alternator working as an electric motor to drive the engine). If you have a bank of tanks already filled, you could refill much more quickly, much as dive shops do with scuba tanks. MDI claims a 3 minute refill time.
Of course, if you do refill that quickly, the air in the tank will be very very hot (which is why the fill rate on scuba tanks is deliberately slowed down)
Just like CNG cars, I would expect that a fast fill to full pressure settle down to about 75% of full pressure after cooling back off.
IF these cars could achieve the claimed range of 200km, then they would meet the needs of many commuters and urban dweller. Unfortunately, the real range of the vehicles has never been independently shown, other than a test from early 2000 where the MDI car ran out of air after 7.22km. But even back then, MDI was claiming that the production cars due out in 2002 would have 200km range.
In my opinion, the history of inflated, never realized claims makes me very sceptical that MDI will ever deliver a car with the claimed performance.
1.sir i am in india-salem i want to buy this car when it’s coming to indian market?
2.howmuch rupees of this car on the road?
The tank seem to be huge - please see the specification on http://zeropollutionmotors.us/?page_id=43. At the very bottom there is:
Fuel Characteristics:
Compressed Air: 3200 ft3 @ 4500 psi
Charger: On board 5.5 kwh 110/220 v compressor generating 812 ft3 /hr.
Please calculate the volume of 3200 ft3 = 3200 * 0.3m^3 = 3200 x 0.027 = 86.4 m3. Can you imagine 2 m wide tank 2 m high and 21.6 m long?
Ether I am wrong with my calculations or the specification is wrong by the order of 100 - or the whole air car is a hoax.
In other publications it is said the air tank is 300 l. Even forgetting what I tried to prove above I can’t imagine the tank compressed to 300 bar. Will any authority allow it?
In spite of that I hope I am wrong and the air car is viable.
Hi Wade, because Ford Geelong is has just introduced their new ‘invention’ of powering a car by air - for which they probably require some billions in government/taxpayers grants to develop. Mind you - it will save some 5 or 10 jobs in Geelong. so - money well spent I guess
If you now how can I buy an air car please write me on my Email: NodarTushishvili@gmail.com
We would like buy air cars for teast reasons (market researchs).
Please,If it is posible ,If anyone knows the contact
persons-salers,or oficia ldistributor of MDI,Tata-Air CAr, send to us
account or write as how can we reach the goal. Our Email:
nodartushishvili@gmail.com
georgeaskurava@ymail.com
The only reason we don’t have clean energy in Australia is that the petroleum lobby and influence in Parliament ensures that we remain wedded to petroleum as the primary source of energy. Who do you think is agitating against wind farms, solar farms and nuclear energy? Who organises all those demonstrations? The World Oil cartels. Even LPG, which we have in abundance is far cleaner than petrol and diesel. We Australians are being led by our noses by the Oil Cartels.
Because the World’s Oil cartels are doing everything possible to sabotage it, including buying up TATA motor’s chief engineer, infiltraing into the engineering department and so forth. Just as they have been sabotaging and buying up patents for new developments in solar enegy and electricity stotage systems.
Innovative idea, but you WOULD STILL NEED FOSSIL FUELS. The thing would be crappy for hauling, and the car would go how fast? Not fast enough for highway travel i could imagine. Basically: not the pefect solution we’ve all been wating for (not that there ever was one).
Haway Alex, have a read of the article/comments/links.
a) Fossil fuels - not necessarily
b) Plenty of people just want to get a-b, no need to haul - I suspect mini, fiat 500, beetle, scooters, smart etc would suggest theres a scaleable market here
c) 70mph
In the main text, you said the miniCAT would have a range of about 300km between refuels. But in the bullet points below, you said it would have a range of up to 200km.
why do all electric/air cars always look like disability vehicles
In reply to Ben, cars are practical /functional means of transport.
We need cheap, safe, transport that doesn’t pollute the planet
Cars are not fashion accessories they are machines, all of them are ugly but some are necessary, until we find better options ( eg wings !!) - just like a washing machine the car is there to do a job. You would complain bitterly if a “washing machine that was deemed to look fantastic” but failed to properly clean your clothes
Looks ain’t everything !
We are approaching the August 2009 point where the article says Tata will have 6,000 air powered cars on the road.
So far, I haven’t heard any word from Tata other than “the MDI technology is nascent”, that it needs a lot of additional work, and that no cars will be forthcoming in the near future.
Has anybody heard anything different? Has anybody heard Tata say when (or IF) they intend to sell an air powered car?