Meanwhile, in Parts Of The World That Actually ACT When There's A Crisis...

...Tata Motors, India's biggest car manufacturer, has just announced the street date for the MiniCAT, which is a car that runs on compressed air. The first 6000 are due on the street in August - that's, errr, in 2 weeks.

Capable of a 156-mile range (that's an average; they claim 2-300 kilometers, so I called it 250 and converted) on a single charge, the car can refill at a "gas" station with an industrial compressor in 3 minutes, or at home in 3 to 4 hours on the included compressor.

The air that comes out as "exhaust" is cold enough to also power the air conditioning directly.

There are NO pollutants whatsoever.

The motor oil only need changing every 31,000 miles, because there are no combustion residues.

The price is a bit over $8,000, and refills are around $2 worth of electricity.

..Believe it or not, this passes the economy test and actually is cheaper than my 15-year-old Saturn.

There are some issues; its current construction will UNQUESTIONABLY not pass U.S. "safety" standards, which would require it to be far heavier and more expensive. For safety.

But, anyway, at least someone somewhere is working on an actual useful technology that can alleviate the fuel crunch.




...HOLY JESUS CHRIST, people, STOP adding new tags! We don't need "environment, enviroment, environmentalism." ONE would have been good enough. You DO know you can just go in the list and click individual tags to put them on your post, instead of misspelling your way into a list three pages long, right?