MDI, the company created by the French engineer Guy Nègre, has releasedtoday a new vehicle to be "powered by compressed air", the AirPOD, aname that tries to associate the car with one of our days icon, theiPod, from Apple. As well as the MP3 device, MDI's AirPOD is compactand has an original design. We just can't say it is exactly elegant orbeautiful, especially considering it should be a car.
Besidesthe compressed air engine, the AirPOD has another unusual feature: ajoystick instead of a steering wheel. All controls, as the ones inVenturi Volage, are "by wire", with no mechanical connection amongcomponents.
Considering it is a 2.07 m long, 1.60 m wide and1.74 m tall covered car (it looks like a trike, but it has two hiddenwheels in the front end) with room for four people (three adults andone child), it had to save space for its passengers. Direction is givenby different speeds in each of the rear wheels, another similarity withVolage.
Very light (only 220 kg for the passenger version), itcan have its 175 l air tank recharged in a mere 1.5 minute (at 350bar!) and is able to run up to 220 km, with a top speed of 70 km/h forpeople with a driving license.
In France, there are vehiclesthat can be driven by children and people with no driving licenses inregular city traffic. For these people, AirPOD's top speed is limitedto 45 km/h.
MDIdeclares AirPOD will be the first car to be series-produced, by the endof the first quarter of 2009. It will join three other vehicles:OneFlowAIR, a convertible, MiniFlowAIR, a small city car a littlebigger than AirPOD and CityFlowAIR, a mid-sized vehicle able to carrysix people. Prices are said to be incredibly low when compared tosimilar sized vehicles, especially if they are electric.
Source: MDI
Besidesthe compressed air engine, the AirPOD has another unusual feature: ajoystick instead of a steering wheel. All controls, as the ones inVenturi Volage, are "by wire", with no mechanical connection amongcomponents.
Considering it is a 2.07 m long, 1.60 m wide and1.74 m tall covered car (it looks like a trike, but it has two hiddenwheels in the front end) with room for four people (three adults andone child), it had to save space for its passengers. Direction is givenby different speeds in each of the rear wheels, another similarity withVolage.
Very light (only 220 kg for the passenger version), itcan have its 175 l air tank recharged in a mere 1.5 minute (at 350bar!) and is able to run up to 220 km, with a top speed of 70 km/h forpeople with a driving license.
In France, there are vehiclesthat can be driven by children and people with no driving licenses inregular city traffic. For these people, AirPOD's top speed is limitedto 45 km/h.
MDIdeclares AirPOD will be the first car to be series-produced, by the endof the first quarter of 2009. It will join three other vehicles:OneFlowAIR, a convertible, MiniFlowAIR, a small city car a littlebigger than AirPOD and CityFlowAIR, a mid-sized vehicle able to carrysix people. Prices are said to be incredibly low when compared tosimilar sized vehicles, especially if they are electric.
Source: MDI
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