Air Car

A French auto maker has reportedly finished a working model of a car that runs either completely on air for about 100 miles, or with air and fuel to run more efficiently. A full tank of air and eight gallons of gas will get you 800 to 1,000 miles. It sounds like a breakthrough - the type of breakthrough that is possible when you devote more resources to alternative means of producing energy.

Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) confirmed to PopularMechanics.com on Thursday that it expects to produce the world’s first air-powered car for the United States by late 2009 or early 2010. As the U.S. licensee for Luxembourg-based MDI, which developed the Air Car as a compression-based alternative to the internal combustion engine, ZPM has attained rights to build the first of several modular plants, which are likely to begin manufacturing in the Northeast and grow for regional production around the country, at a clip of up to 10,000 Air Cars per year.

And while ZPM is also licensed to build MDI’s two-seater OneCAT economy model (the one headed for India) and three-seat MiniCAT (like a SmartForTwo without the gas), the New Paltz, N.Y., startup is aiming bigger: Company officials want to make the first air-powered car to hit U.S. roads a $17,800, 75-hp equivalent, six-seat modified version of MDI’s CityCAT (pictured above) that, thanks to an even more radical engine, is said to travel as far as 1000 miles at up to 96 mph with each tiny fill-up.

If/when it comes to the states, how badly will the US tax the imports, do you think? Enough to make it impossible to sell one here?

I know where my money is.