Compresses Air To Run Vehicles

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One of our local correspondent met with the founder of MDI, Guy Negre, and interviewed him and his team about his famous compressed air vehicles, CAV. What we found was an interesting fellow with ingenious solutions, backed by a dedicated team and financially supported by Tata.

The gist is that powering a vehicle with compressed air might sound far out but until we sat in it and actually drove, we never expected the technology performed that well. In a nutshell, the CAV uses compressed air in tanks that delivers air to a piston engine which propels the CAV.

History. MDI was founded in 1991 whose aim was to develop zero pollution engines. Guy Negre has designed about a hundred engines, and the idea is to promote and develop ecological energies with zero-pollution vehicles and systems.


Developing CAVs. Located in sunny south of France in Carros, MDI feverishly works on new technologies and innovative production methods. The fifty, or so engineers and technicians work on the compressed air vehicles, now with the support of Tata Motors who became the exclusive licensee for their technologies in India.

The road wasn’t always easy and the company has attracted an unwarranted share of detractors, mostly in France. Here are some of their important dates:

1996 creation of the first Compressed Air engines (1st generation).
1998 Creation of the first compressed air, cars, namely the Green Taxi. Picture below.
1999 “MDIs Industrial concept”
2001 Dual-energy technology - “stop and go” piston
2002 Presentation of the MiniCATs at the‘Mondial de l’auto’
2003 New thermodynamic cycle (active chamber)
2005 Creation of the “cold combustion” cycle.
2007 Signature of the TATA Motors agreement – Development of the OneCATS
2008 Development of the OneCATS and preparation of the Model factory
2009 Launching of the OneCATS

Test Driving An AirPod. Test driving the famous AirPod was unlike anything. It gave us an opportunity to take a closer look at the technology. To quote our corespondent: “I’ve driven a lot of cars and tested prototypes, but nothing prepared me for this. It’s all fly-by-wire, makes some noise when starting, is fairly quiet at speed and best part of it all, it only exhausts cold air.” It’s hard not to get excited reading this.

The compressed air engine has a lot of kick and the steering is no different than playing on a video game with a joy stick. We feel the new generation will have no problems driving these types of vehicles. For the rest of us, it’s all with your right hand. Maybe this is what pilots experienced going from Boeing to Airbus.


Considering the platform has two propelling wheels behind and two smaller ones in front for steering, the ride is smooth and stable. Shorter than a Smart ForTwo, with its pivotal front axle, it can turn around itself. Pressing the accelerator pedal unleashed the compressed air and the engine sounded like an old two-stroke starting, but after that, it was fairly quiet.

airpod-turn2

Our Thoughts. We were very impressed not only with the technology that went into using air to power a car. It’s no wonder he has scared a few who lobbied an opposition. None the less, his technology could well serve many transport scenario. It’s not hard to see what far reaching consequences MDI’s compress air technology. Fleets with heavy stop and go traffic, such as the postal office would greatly benefit from this. They could need is to install an air compressor and tank, and voila. And in order to further lower electricity consumption, solar panels and wind turbines could be used to power the compressor, making these cars truly non-polluting.