The World's Cheapest, Greenest Cars

A car that produces virtually no emissions, does not add any pollution to the environment and can run on no fuel other than thin air (well, compressed air). This is an idea that seems like a mixture of science fiction and wishful thinking but such a vehicle does exist and manufacturing is currently being scaled up. The first air cars could be on sale by the end of 2010. Early customers of the OneCAT, which has been developed during the last decade by a French company, will be in India, but it is likely to reach American, European and other markets in the next few years.

The OneCAT is made of fibreglass and looks a bit like the old shaped Ka. It is extremely light, weighing only 350 kilograms and is a three-seater. It is unbelievably cheap and will retail in the Indian market at the equivalent of £2500. An even cheaper car, the Nano produced by the Indian manufacturer Tata (which recently bought the British company Landrover) is already available. The Nano costs only £1250.

Runs on Compressed Air

The new OneCAT car has a piston engine that runs on compressed air. Refuelling gives it the capacity to travel between 120 and 185 miles per top-up, which is very cheap at about £1. The engine, the manufacturers claim, is highly efficient and is able to power the car without additional fuels up to certain speeds. To go faster, the engine does need some conventional fuels and does need oil to keep the engine lubricated and an oil change would be necessary every 30 000 miles. Nevertheless, a full tank of compressed air can provide enough power to travel a significant distance – and the car is supposed to be able to travel at 70 miles per hour without any trouble. Whether the efficiency of compressed air use goes down at highest speeds is not yet clear.

Unlike a conventional engine, the OneCAT engine does not produce a lot of waste heat, so the exhaust – which is just air – is cool and can be used to power the air conditioning unit inside the car (useful in India but perhaps not so useful in northern Europe).

A Green Car?

The car is obviously very environmentally friendly to run but its manufacturing process has also been designed to have a very low carbon footprint and impact on the environment. The French group is now negotiating with Tata, the Indian manufacturer of the Nano to see how production can be scaled up to meet what is expected to be a very high demand. A compressed air-powered car could compete very effectively against other ‘green’ cars that run on biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells, which are all much more expensive both to make and to run.

An Air Car for the USA and Beyond?

Plans are in place to develop a form of the OneCAT for the European market, called the CityCAT. This would be somewhat more expensive at the equivalent of around £9000 but would have the same top speed (70 mph) and the same travel capacity (120 miles on one refuelling). The advantage is that the full tank would cost only about £1.60, a lot less than a couple of litres of petrol.

A more expensive six-seater model is also at the development stage to compete in the family car market in the USA. The performance of this giant air-powered car would be impressive – estimates say it could travel a thousand miles on one tank of compressed air and could cruise at speeds of up to 96 miles per hour.

One worry is that the air powered cars would need to refuel at stations that were fitted with suitable units to deliver the compressed air – and these would be relatively few and far between to start with. However, the car has been designed with its own air compressor that runs from electricity – so that car can be plugged in and car refill its own tank in about four hours.

The French company that has designed the air car has also negotiated with manufacturers in twelve other countries around the world, including South Africa and Israel. There is no news yet on its availability in the UK but such an efficient smaller car would seem to be ideal for our congested motorways, cities and towns.