French manufacturer Peugeot is showcasing its hybrid air technology – a system which allows a car to be driven around town powered by little more than compressed air.

link—http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29476741

The idea is to produce a hybrid which has low emissions and doesn’t need a battery – because batteries are heavy and expensive.

Therefore, the car will be lighter and cheaper compared to electric cars. I think this might be a good news to middle class people since they can now own a eco-friendly with affordable price. In addition, the car does not need a charger station to pump air into it and compressed air would be restored within 10s. This is more convenient, comparing to electric cars which need special charger stations. What’s more, even though electric cars have zero emissions, the battery pollution is still a threat to the environment. Thus, using air as fuel to run cars is more safe and sensible.

However, it is reported that the hybrid air car should be run in urban city since compressed air just cannot support long distances travels. This will be resulted in low demand because customers want a useful car that can support either short trip or long journey. Another problem is that with no big battery to run the air conditioning at standstill, the engine would have to run, using gas. “a crash-safe accumulator large enough to hold the requisite amount of pressure (up to 4351 psi) might be heavy enough to negate any benefit.“ Therefore, hydraulic systems could find it difficult to gain consumer acceptance.

Hybrid Air Car is still worth to try and we hope that future technology can develop the system to compensate those disadvantages.

Reference:

BBC News, (2014). The car that’s powered by air. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29476741

Autocar.co.uk, (2014). Peugeot-Citroen unveils compressed air hybrid tech | Autocar. [online] Available at: http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/green-cars/peugeot-citroen-unveils-compressed-air-hybrid-tech