Copyright 2000 Newspaper Publishing PLC
The Independent (London)
October 26, 2000, Thursday
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 14
LENGTH: 395 words
HEADLINE: TAXIS THAT RUN ON FRESH AIR ALONE MAY SOLVE POLLUTION PROBLEMS IN
CITIES
BYLINE: Charles Arthur Technology Editor
BODY:
A CAR THAT runs on fresh air and exudes even fresher air might sound like an
environmentalist's fantasy.
But there is such a vehicle - and a French company has a contract to build
40,000 of them for the Mexican government, which wants to use them as taxis
in Mexico City, the most polluted city on earth. The car's inventor says
that in cities it could soon challenge cars powered by conventional fuels.
Guy Negre, a former designer of engines for Formula 1 cars and lightweight
aircraft, has been working on his "zero pollution" design for almost 10
years. He believes it is now ready to go into full production.
The power unit burns nothing. It gets its motive power from 300 litres of
air, compressed to 300 times atmospheric pressure. Mr Negre says tests
indicate that it could run for 120 miles in an urban environment - where
speeds of 30mph would be sufficient - but that it could also manage a top
speed of up to 60mph.
Recharging the vehicle would simply require a stop at an "air pumping"
station, where the tanks would be refilled. The stop would take less than
five minutes.
The car runs by releasing the supercompressed air into a piston chamber,
driving the piston down. Heated air from outside is then added to the
chamber to warm it up, and the mixture is expelled as the piston rises
again. The expelled air is passed through carbon filters, meaning that
generally it will emerge cleaner than the air that went in.
Mr Negre insists that the "Taxi Zero Pollution", as the car has been dubbed,
handles and drives just as well as a normal one. He has licensed the design
to a number of companies to build it in different countries: moves are under
way to manufacture them in Mexico, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, New
York, Switzerland and France. There are negotiations over a plant for the
UK, but nothing has been decided.
Possible difficulties with the project include providing a big enough
network of air filling stations, and starting the vehicle if the air tanks
are nearly empty, when they might not have enough energy to keep the car
going.
Steve Hounsham of the pressure group Transport 2000 said: "This could make a
worthwhile contribution to reducing pollution, but that's only one problem
that needs to be addressed. It won't reduce congestion, road traffic
accidents or pressure on the countryside."
GRAPHIC: The 'zero pollution' taxi
Kris Van Baelen
EURO Program
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