[jebartle]

Gets 60 mph, seats 6....Wow! Just what the Villages needs!

Tata Motors Mini CAT Air Car scheduled for 2012
Report
By nomadioc on Nov-24-11 2:08am
From: indiaoncars.com
Tata 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-fueling (or re-gassing). The Tata Motors Mini CAT Air Car is scheduled for an unveiling in 2012 followed by a launch sometime later the same year.

The MiniCAT which is a simple, light urban car, with a tubular chassis that is glued, not welded, and a body of fiberglass powered by compressed air. Microcontrollers are used in every device in the car, so one tiny radio transmitter sends instructions to the lights, indicators, etc.


There are no keys – just an access card which can be read by the car from your pocket. According to the designers, it costs less than 50 rupees per 100 km (about a tenth that of a petrol car). Its mileage is about double that of the most advanced electric car (200 to 300 km or 10 hours of driving), a factor which makes a perfect choice in cities where 80% of motorists drive at less than 60 km. The Tata Motors Mini CAT Air Car has a top speed of 105 km/h.


The vehicle itself is a six-seat mini van using two 340-litre carbon fibre gas tanks which are filled with air to 4350psi. The Air Car is expected to be priced around Rs. 3.5 – 4 lakh when it hits the Indian marker sometime in August, 2011.

[Shimpy]

Originally Posted by jebartle

Gets 60 mph, seats 6....Wow! Just what the Villages needs!

Tata Motors Mini CAT Air Car scheduled for 2012
Report
By nomadioc on Nov-24-11 2:08am
From: indiaoncars.com
Tata 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-fueling (or re-gassing). The Tata Motors Mini CAT Air Car is scheduled for an unveiling in 2012 followed by a launch sometime later the same year.

The MiniCAT which is a simple, light urban car, with a tubular chassis that is glued, not welded, and a body of fiberglass powered by compressed air. Microcontrollers are used in every device in the car, so one tiny radio transmitter sends instructions to the lights, indicators, etc.


There are no keys – just an access card which can be read by the car from your pocket. According to the designers, it costs less than 50 rupees per 100 km (about a tenth that of a petrol car). Its mileage is about double that of the most advanced electric car (200 to 300 km or 10 hours of driving), a factor which makes a perfect choice in cities where 80% of motorists drive at less than 60 km. The Tata Motors Mini CAT Air Car has a top speed of 105 km/h.


The vehicle itself is a six-seat mini van using two 340-litre carbon fibre gas tanks which are filled with air to 4350psi. The Air Car is expected to be priced around Rs. 3.5 – 4 lakh when it hits the Indian marker sometime in August, 2011.

I have no idea what 50 rupees means, nor km/h, 340-litre, or especially Rs. 3.5 - 4 lakh.

[dwebb]

September 05, 2011 at 0:14 am PST | Steve Puma writes:

I don’t know…I think we aught to “Ask Pablo” about this one… It sounds great, but my gut tells me that something isn’t right. There’s just too many people who say that the physics don’t work out, and there is an odd lack of transparency, from the various companies involved.

For example: there is no mention of the Air Car on Tata India’s website (try doing a search on their site). Wouldn’t you think that they would be making a big deal out of it, if it was actually going to be coming to market soon?

The U.S. licensee doesn’t even have a website, anymore!

Seems like somethings’ rotten in Denmark…

[CarGuys]

Have seen it work, It works and it's real.

We will not see it in production or imported here for awhile.

I'm waiting for the " Does it run on cold or Hot air question! "

Now if it ran on Hot Air, Just think a pipe line from Congress would give us a unlimited supply.

[BillCongo]

Originally Posted by Shimpy

I have no idea what 50 rupees means, nor km/h, 340-litre, or especially Rs. 3.5 - 4 lakh.

The pasted quote is from an Indian source. In spite of my time in India, and the fact that the organization I served with was a very major property owner in India, I have to admit I have to rethink it each time. The Indian numbering system is interesting.

From Wikipedia:
Although based on the decimal system, it is unlike western cultures; after a thousand the next major figure is not a million (thousand x thousand) but a lakh (hundred x thousand) or 1,00,000; after this the next is not a billion (thousand x thousand x thousand)[going by American English definition], but a crore (hundred x hundred x thousand) or 1,00,00,000 in numerical form. Therefore in Indian English, values greater than or equal to hundred thousand Indian rupees are spoken of, written and counted in terms of lakhs (one lakh = hundred thousand), and crores (one crore = ten million).

For example, the amount INR3,25,84,729.25 is read as three crore(s), twenty-five lakh(s), eighty-four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-nine rupees and twenty-five paise. The use of million or billion, as is standard in American or British English, is not common and sometimes cause confusion to the ill informed and can lead to mis-translations and consequential problems.

Of course km/h is simply kilometers per hour. A kilometer is about .6 of a mile in our system.

340 litres? A liter is a bit more than a quart, so that's not too hard to visualize. But of course the metric system is so much more simple than our system of weights and measures. A liter of water weighs a kilo and many things flow from that (a litre translates to about 2.2 pounds in our system). And so forth.

I had a Tata Maruti once upon a time. Tata makes good vehicles; their strength is in larger vehicles. I'm sure we'll all be interested to see whether they actually pull off a successful launch of a compressed air powered vehicle where so many others have failed...........

[getdul981]

Can you imagine the compressor required to get 4300 PSI?

[cappyjon431]

Originally Posted by getdul981

Can you imagine the compressor required to get 4300 PSI?

The Bauer compressor I had in my dive shop could charge up to 6000psi, but it was large (3'W x 4'D x 5'H), noisy, and used quite a bit of electricity.

[Tom Hannon]

Can you buy the car at 7_Eleven

[Bill-n-Brillo]

Better duck, Tom!!!

FWIW: Tata Motors acquired both Jaguar and Land Rover brands from Ford a few years back...............

Bill

[BigLew]

I've powered a few cars myself with compressed gas