Tata Motors’ Air Car: Which Way Does the

Wind Blow?
It seems like every few months, we get wind of another vehicle that is supposed to be powered by compressed air. The
Mini Cat Air Car, from India-based Tata Motors, seems almost too good to be true. Tata Motors is India’s largest
automobile company. It is the leader in commercial vehicles, and among the top three in passenger vehicles.

Designed by an ex-IndyCar™ engineer, the Mini Cat utilizes compressed air to move its motors’ pistons, claims zero
tailpipe emissions, and an extremely low cost to run. Is it the real deal, or a lot of hot air?

Compressed-air has been used to power a wide variety of vehicles since the 1800s with only limited success, due to
inherent inefficiencies. The concept found some limited success in powering locomotives, mostly used for mining, where
a combustion-free energy source was desirable. Ultimately, even these were replaced by more efficient electric motors.

Several modern companies have attempted to produce a working compressed-air powered car, but none have yet to
reach the consumer market.

Energine Corporation, of Korea, claimed that it was going to deliver a

hybrid compressed-air/electric car, only to see its CEO arrested for making exaggerated claims.

K’Airmobiles, a French company, were another compressed air concept, but it never saw the light of day. The company
was unable to procure the necessary funding, and the engineers who worked on the project, ultimately admitted that the
inherent efficiency and low-running-temperature problems made the project unfeasible.

In 2010, Honda showed off the Honda Air concept car, a 1,000-pound, 4-passenger car, made out of composite
materials. (While the concept sounds good, in theory, I would hazard a guess that the high price of the composite
materials used in this car would make it unable to compete with other alternatively-fueld vehicles.)

The TaTa Air Car concept engine was developed by Motor Development International (“MDI”), of France, with the
backing of Tata. (This version of a compressed air engine has been in development for over 20 years.) Zero Pollution
Motors holds a license to produce the cars in the U.S. market.

However, this version of an air-powered car has also been beset with problems.

In 2008, Popular Mechanics wrote, “Zero Pollution Motors confirmed to PopularMechanics.com on Thursday that it
expects to produce the world’s first air-powered car for the United States by late 2009 or early 2010.”

Although there are several blogs, and news outlets, which still refer
to Zero Pollution Motors as the holder of the U.S. license to produce MDI’s Air Cars, I was unable to uncover any
evidence that the company is still in existence, at least in any substantial form. (For example, the company’s website,
zeropollutionmotors.us, has a suspended domain name.)

In 2009, Tata Motors’ vice-president (engineering systems) S. Ravishankar told DNA Money the project is facing
difficulties in terms of vehicle range and cooling. Ravishankar said, “Air is not a fuel, it is just an energy carrier. So a
tank full of air does not have the same energy as a tank full of CNG. Any vehicle using only compressed air to run would
face problems of range.”

The article continues: “Ravishankar…went on to say that excessively low engine temperature is another problem, in a
vehicle using only compressed gas as fuel.”

In April of this year, InAutoNews.com explained that the cars, intended for the U.S. market, would not be entirely
emissions-free, because a small gasoline engine was required, to allow the car to run at city speeds. (Perhaps this
was the reason, for the long delay, in bringing the air car to market? Perhaps the designers were attempting to figure out
a way to make the One Cat run on compressed air, only?)

In December of 2009, UC Berkeley, ICF International and Stanford experts had this to say about the feasibility of
compressed air versus chemical fuels, as an energy storage medium: “The study concluded that even under highly
optimistic assumptions the compressed air car is less efficient than a battery electric vehicle and produces more
greenhouse gas emissions than a conventional gas powered car with a coal intensive power mix. It did state however,
that a pneumatic combustion hybrid is feasible and inexpensive and could compete with hybrid electric vehicles.

So, it would appear that the jury is not entirely out on the feasibility of a compressed air powered car, but it certainly
does not look good for the Tata/MDI version.

But let’s assume that the Mini Cat Air Car really does live up to the claims of the manufacturer. Just how
environmentally-friendly is a compressed air car, anyway?

In 2009, that’s exactly what Popular Mechanics endeavored to find out. They compared the Zero Pollution Motors
AirPod (an extremely strange-looking precursor to the Mini Cat), to electric, gas, hybrid and diesel. The numbers include
the CO2 produced, by the generation of any required electricity. The results were interesting:

 Zero Pollution Motors AirPod: “24.014 pounds CO2 for 100 miles”
 Tesla Roadster: “32.98 pounds of CO2 for 100 miles”

 2010 Toyota Prius: “39.192 pound of CO2 for 100 miles”

 2009 Honda Civic (non-hybrid): “64.67 pounds of CO2 for 100 miles”

 2009 VW Jetta TDI Diesel: “62.5 pound of CO2 for 100 miles”

Popular Mechanics’ conclusion? “The AirPod is CO2-light, even for a tiny three-seater (although we wonder if the
mileage goes down with three people onboard, which effectively doubles the vehicle’s weight). But zero pollution? Not
so much.”

So, from a strictly empirical analysis, it would appear that air cars (if they were feasible) would have a bit of an edge
where pollution is concerned. Of course, air cars would still not have the speeds necessary to allow them to be driven
on highways.

Being an eternal optimist, I still hold out hope that Tata isn’t just “blowing smoke.” I’m not going to hold my breath,
though.

ata Motors and ex-Formula One engineer Guy N. from a Luxembourg MDI have come up with a car that runs on
air. Dubbed the Tata Mini CAT, or Air Car, the environmentally-friendly car uses no petrol, requires little
maintenance and has a range of around 300km between re-gassing. Tata hopes to have it on the market in India
in 2012.

The way the Air Car is propelled is fairly straight forward. There are two tanks of compressed air which turn an
almost-conventional piston motor and drive system. The system is said to propel the small van to a top speed of
around 105km/h.
Tata says the Air Car stores enough compressed air to offer around 300km worth of motoring. Users will then be
able to re-gas the car at certain filling stations that are equipped with special tanks of compressed air, in around
three to four minutes for around $2. It will also come with its own generator pack which can be used at home
capable of re-gassing the tanks in around four hours.

The vehicle itself is a six-seat mini van using two 340-litre carbon fibre gas tanks which are filled with air to
4350psi. It also uses a tubular chassis design with fibreglass panels that are glued together, helping to keep
weight down.

All the accessories and in-car equipment are powered by a microprocessor. From the exhaust the only thing that
is emitted is air, of around zero to minus 15 degrees in temperature.
Tata is aiming to release the Mini CAT Air Car in India next year with prices starting at around $12,700.