Courtesy of green thinking friends at City Hippy.

Air Car Update Well as promised we got in touch with those lovely folks at the Air Car. We wanted to know more about cost, availability, speed, safety, refueling and they delivered some fantastic answers.

Air Car

AVAILABILITY They estimate that the first cars will be available on the road in France in late 2006/early 2007. Arrival of the car in both the UK and US currently depends on some advanced negotiations with prospective licencees. More to follow on that I guess.

If you live in the UK or anywhere in the EU of course you can go to France, buy one and ship it or drive it back. Presumably.

COST The MiniCat version will cost approximately US$9,000 / £5,000 and the larger family version of the Cat (apparently what they have called the CityCat shown above) will cost approximately US$13,000 / £7,000. Not sure if that includes any taxes etc.

Unbelievable. Low cost to buy. Low cost to run. Zero pollution. But surely it can’t compete with other cars for performance?

SPEED The car will be able to reach an astonishing 160k/ph if you go for the six cylinder engine!!!

Fantastic. No compromise on speed then…what about refueling…does it take all night?

REFUELING The car refills the air tanks itself through it’s compression mode which should take approximately four hours. So overnight it is then…but wait! There is a faster option for when you need it.

You can quickly, cheaply (less than a couple of euros, pounds or dollars) and simply refill the air tanks at an air station. Presumably they mean a gas station?

Ok so it is cheap, efficient, speedy, simple to top up…I bet it is built of foil and is not at all safe?

SAFETY This statement from them about safety is very encouraging as a lot of people are bound to doubt this element more than anything else.

Our vehicles will follow the same safety rules and regulations as all approved cars. As far as safety goes, it should be noted that the car’s tubular body will provide increased resistance in the event of a crash.

CONCLUSIONS Where do we sign up? The Air Car offers a fantasticlly affordable, environmentally sound, fast, easy to refuel alternative to modern standard vehicles. Perhaps this could be applied commercially? Air Planes, Air SUV’s, Luxury Air Cars? The potential for change is immense.

This is a very exciting development which will be on the road in 2 years (ish).

The future of personal (and maybe even commercial) transport is here and we think it is The Air Car.