So it seems that Tata Motors have decided to roll out compressed-air cars (using technology from Moteur Development International, based on the ideas of Frenchman Guy Negre) this year (summer 2008) in several countries (France, Spain and India). I’ve got a picture of several models here that I purloined from the Popular Mechanics site. Voici pour vous:

Don’t you want to just rush out and get one now? But first, the details:

• 90 cubic metres of compressed air drive the engine’s pistons. Atmospheric temperature is used to increase the engine’s efficiency, and the cold exhaust air is used for air-conditioning.
• Refilling the air tank is estimated to take 2-3 minutes at specially designed “bowsers”. Cost of one tank is EUR1,50 == USD2.30 (and rising) == SGD3.20. Range of one tank is approximately 200-300km == 124-186mi.
• Maximum speed is around 68mph == 109kph.
• To boost performance, a liquid fuel component can also be added (petrol, biodiesel, diesel), turning the vehicle into a hybrid
• The engine also uses one litre of vegetable oil, with a change recommended every 50,000km.
• The body is made of fibreglass over a tubular chassis. There are no keys, just an access card that can be read as you approach the vehicle.

For further details, go to Impact Lab for a nice wrap-up. Oh, and it looks like the car will be released in the USA next year, with an expected price of around USD17,800 (and rising … have you looked at the US currency exchange rates lately?). Already there are naysayers. Some commenters mention that Guy Negre has been trying to get this technology to work for more than a decade, so what makes anyone think it’s actually viable? Others worry about corrosion in the air-tank. And others still are sceptical of a publicised vehicle range of more than 100km.

Me, I’m worried about safety. If you want to see what happens when you put driving licenses in the hands of essentially clueless people living according to some ancient cultural trope that the richer you are, the more you’re entitled to do whatever the damn hell you want without a single thought to anyone else, come to south-east Asia. Here, you will see Mercedes drivers, obviously in cars too big for them to handle, attempt a u-turn and somehow, amazingly, end up blocking traffic going in both directions. (They often start their turn from the far lane, you see.) Here, too, you will see people in cars sweep blithely by, while pedestrians remain standing at a crossing in the pouring rain, because they have a nice car and you’re just a walking peasant, so guess what you can do with your attempt to cross the road, never mind the thick white stripes on the bitumen and the fact you and your shopping are a sodden mess on the footpath? And I have never seen so many people take so many attempts to reverse park. Honest, I watched one woman try for 15 solid minutes, before she just backed a wheel onto the curb, locked up the car and went shopping. As I said to J, I was soooo tempted to walk up to her and demand her keys just so I could park the damn car myself, and put myself out of my misery. (Yes, believe it or not, I like parallel parking. I consider it a mathematical problem, each one unique. “Can I use my experience from the last park to negotiate this one? Or is there something I need to vary, taking into account the length of the car and length of the space?” Seriously, I really am that boring.)

So, getting back to the issue at hand, I’m a bit leery with taking a fibreglass car out on the road in these here locales. (And if anyone from India would like to comment on the state of driving there, I’m all ears.) You have small cars that the big cars ignore, the big cars driven mostly by incompetents, the scooters and bikes that whizz in and out of traffic like they’re off on some giant swarming exercise, the buses that know only two speeds, the large vans with their trays often filled with manual labourers on their way to or from work, the delivery trucks, the container trucks. And that’s before you even confront the drivers who can’t even stick to their half of the road, much less remain in their own lanes; the other drivers who think that as they’re driving a Mercedes/Audi/Volvo, they’ll survive an accident, so who cares about anyone else; the truck drivers who like nothing more than overtaking slow traffic on blind curves (this is a national pastime in Malaysia); and so on.

Thus, upon sober reflection, I probably won’t be buying one of those cars anytime soon. But god, how I’d love to.