Air Car's first manufacturing plant will be located in Melbourne, cars sold in Australia next year

Guy Negre and Louis Arnoux of MDI-Energy, the company behind the air car, are in Melbourne, Australia, demonstrating the air car technology to government and potential investors as part of a five year, $1.5 B plan to make and sell the cars in Australia, according to the Age. The first plant will be established in Australia and the cars are expected to be sold in Australia next year says the Age. That turnaround seems fast to me but I would guess those projections may include existing plants from Tata which MDI-Energy has an agreement to produce cars by August 2008.

What's the air car? The air car is a very promising green automotive technology that uses compressed air to propel a car. The Age says the cars can go 68 MPH and has a range of 93 miles or, if the compressed air is heated, potential ranges of thousands of miles (the distance from Perth to Brisbane) are possible. The car would sell for $8,000, the Age says, operating costs would be 80 percent less, the plant would mean 7,000 new jobs for Melbourne, and MDI-Energy aims to reduce car emission 20 percent over the next 10 years.

You can see why so many people are really looking forward to air cars hitting the streets.

Related:

• The Air Car Can Blow You Away
• India's Tata Motors and France's MDI sign agreement to build compressed air-powered cars
• Old video of air-powered car making the rounds at YouTube

[Source: The Age]

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