AirPod. The car of the future in compressed air.
Gasoline prices continue to remain at a fairly high level. This encourages engineers to find solutions to create economical and environmentally friendly transport. Hybrid cars are not new to anyone and they really help to save on fuel, but are they so eco-friendly, as they say? In fact, even for the production of electricity, a considerable amount of natural resources is expended. Some engineers and auto companies offer to use hydrogen as a fuel, but this is unlikely to be economical enough.
Against the backdrop of all this Guy Negre - the former engine designer F-1 and the founder of the company MDI offered to use compressed air as a fuel. After a long period of research in this area, a new transport appeared - the AirPod. The car, if you can call it that, looking at its appearance, is set in motion from the energy of compressed air.
The exterior of the car, to put it mildly, is unusual:
Fuel tank - a cylinder for compressed air can hold 200 liters of this fuel. This stock should be enough for 200 km, and refueling will take about 2 minutes and will cost 1 euro.
The weight of the AirPod is 220 kg. Such ease is achieved due to the fact that the sedan part of the car is made of plastic. It's hard to call this a plus, because the crash tests AirPod does not stand. However, this is still work.
Control AirPod'om implemented using the joystick.
Already in the near future it is planned to serial production of AirPod. Licenses for its production were purchased by Indian company Tata Motors and American Zero Pollution Motors. The latter is going to produce 8,000 AirPods per year by 2011.It will be more powerful models than those you can talk about right now.
Now AirPod is produced in two trim levels - cargo and passenger. Cargo AirPod includes a place for the driver and a cargo weighing 300kg. The passenger model will accommodate the driver and two passengers.
little upsetting speed that can develop AirPod - it is only 70 km / h. By the way, for French consumers will produce special models with a maximum speed limit of 45 km / h. Management of such low-power AirPods will not require a driver's license.
It is planned that the main buyers of AirPods will be not ordinary citizens, but organizations and social structures. For example, AirFrance / KLM airlines are already ready to use AirPod to transport their passengers between points of arrival.