MDI releases the concept car AirPOD
MDI, the company created by the French engineer Guy Nègre, has released
today a new vehicle to be "powered by compressed air", the AirPOD, a
name that tries to associate the car with one of our days icon, the
iPod, from Apple. As well as the MP3 device, MDI's AirPOD is compact
and has an original design. We just can't say it is exactly elegant or
beautiful, especially considering it should be a car.
Besides
the compressed air engine, the AirPOD has another unusual feature: a
joystick instead of a steering wheel. All controls, as the ones in
Venturi Volage, are "by wire", with no mechanical connection among
components.Considering it is a 2.07 m long, 1.60 m wide and
1.74 m tall covered car (it looks like a trike, but it has two hidden
wheels in the front end) with room for four people (three adults and
one child), it had to save space for its passengers. Direction is given
by different speeds in each of the rear wheels, another similarity with
Volage.Very light (only 220 kg for the passenger version), it
can have its 175 l air tank recharged in a mere 1.5 minute (at 350
bar!) and is able to run up to 220 km, with a top speed of 70 km/h for
people with a driving license. In France, there are vehicles
that can be driven by children and people with no driving licenses in
regular city traffic. For these people, AirPOD's top speed is limited
to 45 km/h.
MDI
declares AirPOD will be the first car to be series-produced, by the end
of the first quarter of 2009. It will join three other vehicles:
OneFlowAIR, a convertible, MiniFlowAIR, a small city car a little
bigger than AirPOD and CityFlowAIR, a mid-sized vehicle able to carry
six people. Prices are said to be incredibly low when compared to
similar sized vehicles, especially if they are electric.
Source: MDI
Besides
the compressed air engine, the AirPOD has another unusual feature: a
joystick instead of a steering wheel. All controls, as the ones in
Venturi Volage, are "by wire", with no mechanical connection among
components.Considering it is a 2.07 m long, 1.60 m wide and
1.74 m tall covered car (it looks like a trike, but it has two hidden
wheels in the front end) with room for four people (three adults and
one child), it had to save space for its passengers. Direction is given
by different speeds in each of the rear wheels, another similarity with
Volage.Very light (only 220 kg for the passenger version), it
can have its 175 l air tank recharged in a mere 1.5 minute (at 350
bar!) and is able to run up to 220 km, with a top speed of 70 km/h for
people with a driving license. In France, there are vehicles
that can be driven by children and people with no driving licenses in
regular city traffic. For these people, AirPOD's top speed is limited
to 45 km/h.
MDI
declares AirPOD will be the first car to be series-produced, by the end
of the first quarter of 2009. It will join three other vehicles:
OneFlowAIR, a convertible, MiniFlowAIR, a small city car a little
bigger than AirPOD and CityFlowAIR, a mid-sized vehicle able to carry
six people. Prices are said to be incredibly low when compared to
similar sized vehicles, especially if they are electric.
Source: MDI
