It's a Revolution!
The world has been consumed with the need to get away from using fossil fuels for energy. Such fuels contaminate and are not unlimited, and have a way of financing some of the most unpleasant providers on the planet. The one advantage that travel by boat has always had is that there was an option to move without cost, and that is by wind. A day out sailing can be both very delightful as well as cost free.
Driving has never been free, and never will be. However, the search has been to make it as cheap as possible. The most promising development to date had been the Electric Car, but electricity has a significant cost. It has the benefit however, as it makes the actual running of the car quiet and pollution-free.
Now, introducing The Air Car!
This incorporates a new concept that uses only compressed air to move the vehicle. There’s no need for a battery or even an ounce of petrol, however, on compressed air you can only get it up to 55 kmph. To go faster than that you will have to accept the use of a conventional backup gasoline motor.
France is the country that gets the award for this radical new and practical method of energy. It is really great news to the energy world as being nothing short of revolutionary. The company that will mass produce the Air car is Tata Motors of India. Not Renault, but Tata, and that leads me to ask how long has this technology been ready to be produced for mass transport?
Automakers around the world are in big trouble. They have manufactured cars that no one wants to buy because of a lack of quality, or simply because they have become victims of the worldwide economic crisis like everyone else. It doesn’t seem to be sheer coincidence that this “brand new” technology is now being released upon the world.
I understand that there are vast investments tied up in the fossil fuel driven vehicle. However, we are seeing cars being sold at cut-prices, and even then buyers are scarce. General Motors of the United States will have declared bankruptcy by the time you read this. I try to imagine the scope of the impact of that upon the world and it seems to me like pulling out the one last rock that held up the mountain, or on a smaller scale to aid imagination, if we accept the image of a pile of oranges as being the world, what would happen if you were to pull out one of the bottom oranges. Catastrophe!
In an earlier blog on this very topic of coping with rising fuel costs I suggested that there are probably technologies that are variable to that upon which we rely, but that they are being kept under wraps. The Air Car is likely one of those.
Anyway, the news item appearing in The Costa Blanca News says that 2010 is the year that the car will make its debut, and America is the selected country that the market will be tested for it. An initial run of 10,000 cars will be available for sale at a price range of about 18,000 dollars. The cost of running one will be ridiculously low, as it will cost about two dollars to cover approximately 300 kilometres, and general maintenance will be about zero cost. From the models shown it appears that they are for single person travel,on up to five-seaters.
With this car automobile travel has truly turned a corner and opened up possibilities for the future that are straight out of science fiction.
Like all very good ideas this is so simple. Why didn’t I, or you think of it first?
Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael
