But by AIR?

A car run by air compressed to 4500PSI

-Production is planned
-Comes with a home compressor which will refill the tank in 3-4hrs
-Will take a station to refill the tank in 2-3 minutes
-Air is super cooled, natural heat in the engine causes the air to expand which drives the cylenders.
-Up to ~180mi range
-Why the h3!! does it have to look dumb??  

Its an interesting concept thats for sure....

...but what runs the motor in the air compresser that fills your tank? (Compressing air is a very energy-demanding activity.) Electricity. Probably from coal or natural gas. Nice idea, but effecient? I dunno. It's worth further study, but alike ethanol, it always takes energy to make energy.

I thought it was going to be the one that runs on water.

they've got an "engine" that converts H2O into HHO gas and burns it in the same device.

http://mobilemag.com/content/100/354/C8115/

"the atomic power of hydrogen and the chemical stability of water"

What they need to do is include a fully charged tank when you buy the thing, then refill it as you drive.  It'd be pretty simple, generate electricity from the brakes or something (along the same lines as a hybrid) and use that electricity to power a compressor attached to the tank.  It'd take quite a while to completely refill the tank, but that setup could be darn-near self-sustaining.

I think the idea is , the compressed air tank is taking the place of a "battery".    sure it takes energy to fill the tank, and that energy comes from electricity.  and you'll never get the same amount back out that you put in.  but its still acting as a storage medium for potential energy (its basically just a battery) the question is, how efficient is it compared to other batteries?

thats really the only technology-hurdle holding back the electric car : we're limited by "battery" technology.  
any battery operated electric car would need to spend as much time plugged in (charging) as it does driving around (discharging).  
if we had chemical storage medium that could hold a charge for more than 200 miles and not take hours to recharge again then it would already be in mass production.

I see this as just another kind of "battery"

(except this kind will explode  and take out half a city block when ruptured this will never pass a crash test)

Quote (Cobalt60 @ Sep. 01 2006, 4:09 pm)

(except this kind will explode  and take out half a city block when ruptured this will never pass a crash test)

Well, according to them there safe:

Quote

300 bars of compressed air stored on board the vehicle, Is this dangerous for the passengers?  Compressed air tanks have already been proven safe by one of our partners EADS(AIRBUS). This company's reputation in the aeronautical field is unprecedented, given the reliability of its tanks. What's more, the compressed air does not present any risk of explosion. Countless test have been carried out in the most extreme conditions (gun shoots, resistance to fire...) to guarantee passenger safety in every possible condition. The high pressure tanks have been developed using a similar technology to those used in natural gas vehicles and by firefighters. All are produced with carbon fiber over plastic.  The tanks that MDI puts in its vehicles are similar to those already in use in natural gas busses in Germany and other countries.

If you think about it, your already sitting on 15 gallons of explosives in your current car.  

We need to just revert back to the olden days and ride a Gryphon, like in WoW.

Quote (Dr. Chaotica @ Sep. 02 2006, 1:40 pm)

We need to just revert back to the olden days and ride a Gryphon, like in WoW.

Ah now those were the good old days  

It's a nice idea actually.  Cobolt is right, the hurtle is battery life.  But since the system does not produce excess heat and sound it is considerably more efficient then internal combustion using gasoline.  Because we all know that a decent percent of the energy potential of gasoline is lost to heat sound.