Air Car

A start-up that wants to replace dirty fossil fuel cars with small air-powered ones received $5 million in funding Friday on the ABC show Shark Tank.

Nike single-handedly popularized the term "swoosh." If a new and unexpected project works out as planned, PSA Peugeot Citroen might do the same with "whoosh."

A car that could run on thin air? On the road by 2016? That's what Peugeot-Citroen says it will be selling: A hybrid car that runs on a combination of gasoline and air. Digital Trends has an explainer on how they think it works, but they admit they were looking at poorly translated press releases. It seems to use hydraulic power to keep the car running a

Once upon a time ice cream was delivered in trucks to happy buyers. Then the people drove to the ice cream shop with curbside service. But back in those wonder years, the dream was that one day we'd zip over to the soda fountain in flying cars.

When a news article about a new car starts with this line – "Vehicle currently in development requires no fuel, no external charging" – it makes us worry. We're not exactly big fans of vaporware made of unobtanium. So, it is with skepticism that we read about a new compressed air car being developed by the team at Club Auto Sport in Silicon Valley.

Last December, Green Car Advisor's Nick Kurczewski was able to snag a ride in MDI's AIRPod. Now, the lucky punk journalist has taken a turn behind the wheel. The short version of his review: this could be the car of the future and it feels like an amusement park ride, but it's no Millennium Falcon. Seriously.

A rear seat that faces backwards. Powered by compressed air. Name like the AirPOD and FlowAIR. A windshield that doubles as the door. There are a lot of hurdles that MDI's compressed air line of vehicles needs to jump before people will consider them "real" cars - or at least a solid alternative. At least one North American journalist was recently given the chance to see if riding in a prototype

Echoing rumors that we've been hearing all year is a news story from Kiplingers that we ran across on Yahoo Financial suggesting again that air-powered vehicles will be available in the U.S. within a few years time. Instead of larger cars, though, we could get the little three-wheeled, joystick-driven Jeremy Korzeniewski

Looking like just about every other three-wheeled, joystick-controlled, compressed air-driven car we've ever seen, the AIRPod by MDI will be available to lease in New Zealand soon. MDI has an agreement with IndraNet Technologies to market them in the land of the M?ori and, according to an article in the New Zealand Herald, they could be arriving on the island before the end of the year

We've already been scolded this year not to call the air car the Air Car. The nomenclature is not getting any easier, but hopefully we've reached the last rebranding of the "Compressed Air Vehicle." An update to the MDI website tells us that the vehicle line up now has a "FlowAIR" theme. The models are now known as the OneFlowAIR (open top), MiniFlowAIR (a mini minivan) and CityFlowAI

We heard that MDI, the creators of the AirCar - excuse us, the "Compressed Air Vehicle" - broke off all commercial relations with Miguel Celades, who had been carrying its commercial operations for a while. We tried multiple times to contact Mr. Celades for further explanations, but couldn't. So, we turned to MDI's new webpage and other sources for the information.

Click on the image for more shots of the LEGO V8 engine

Who would have thought that a concept as simple as compressed air could be a viable automotive technology? Sure, we all fill our tires with the stuff, but some automakers - MDI, for one - are considering compressed air as an energy carrier, like a battery. Whether a vehicle is engineered to run solely on air power or if the energy is stored as part of a hybrid system, the very air we

Guy Negre's compressed air vision has crossed our desks before. The vehicle, which uses a motor powered by 4,000 psi of compressed air stored in carbon fiber tanks, will actually start production in India soon – after 15 years in development – thanks to some help from India's biggest automaker, Tata, which itself just Dan Roth

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 g

We have shown you the air-car before, and you may have seen it on TV if you watched the Discovery Channel series, Future Car. If you did, you witnessed them erroneously refer to t

I remember watching this episode of Beyond Tomorrow a while back. There were two competing designers working on cars powered by compressed air. The idea is far from new, but these designers were actually taking the time and money that is necessary to develop their ideas to a commercial stage. The idea seems sound, as the tank of compressed air is really a "battery" of sorts that transfers its energy to a motor of some sort. The Focusing on the Air Car for a moment,