Air Cars vs. Electric Cars vs. Hybrids - Which are Greener?

Dana Nuccitelli — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:43:14 +0000

An ‘air car’ sure sounds clean. A car that runs on air? What’s cleaner than that? But of course it’s not quite that simple.

The world’s first commercial air car is currently being produced by India’s largest automaker, Tata Motors, who is licensing the technology from European-based company MDI. A compressed-air car uses the force of super-compressed air to move the engine’s pistons up and down, as opposed to explosions produced from injecting a small amount of fuel. At higher speeds the engine will burn a small amount of fuel to create more compressed air, sort of like how a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt produces on-the-fly electricity. The hybrid air-car setup should be able use any number of fuels, including gasoline, propane, or ethanol.

So now that we’ve established how the Air Car will work, how green is it?

Green Options » compressed air cas

Air Cars vs. Electric Cars vs. Hybrids - Which are Greener?