Smart Crash

The smart brand of cars, from the Mercedes stable, are going to be available in the US soon. They have been available in Europe for a while now, and have some sort of a cult following there.

The cars, especially the roadster and the roadster coupe look interesting. But the touted features.. 40 miles per gallon? thats just 17km to the liter of diesel, I reckon the Ford Fiesta diesel does about as good if not better. the price at 14000 Pounds is almost 11 lakhs INR, again twice as much as the Fiesta. The Fiesta is a mid sized sedan with four doors, the tiny smart fourtwo, has just two doors, no boot and hardly any crumple zones. For it's size, I would have expected a phenomenal mileage atleast! They are however known to have deceptively large cabin space though, as depicted in this rather interesting ad.

As for the expected 1-lakh Tata small car, I wish it atleast looks as good as the smart.

A Car that Runs on Air?

Moteur Developpment International (MDI) a french company has devised an engine that runs on Compressed Air. And Tata is planning to bringing it to Indian roads!

MDI's engine runs off a canister of compressed air that is carried on-board. These cannisters can be filled at modified fuel pumps. The prototype car can give a traveling range of about 200-300 kms on a full tank. This is better than most electric cars of today, and is good enough for an urban commute.

This article describes several goodies that come with this car. "The MiniC.A.T is a simple, light urban car, with a tubular chassis that is glued not welded and a body of fibreglass. The heart of the electronic and communication system on the car is a computer offering an array of information reports that extends well beyond the speed of the vehicle, and is built to integrate with external systems and almost anything you could dream of, starting with voice recognition, internet connectivity, GSM telephone connectivity, a GPS guidance system, fleet management systems, emergency systems, and of course every form of digital entertainment. The engine is fascinating, as is and the revolutionary electrical system that uses just one cable and so is the vehicle’s wireless control system. Microcontrollers are used in every device in the car, so one tiny radio transmitter sends instructions to the lights, indicators etc. There are no keys – just an access card which can be read by the car from your pocket." It also claims that the running cost for this car will be about a tenth of a petrol car.

Tata and MDI have issued a press release about the venture. MDI seems to have already conducted some field trials in Mexico. One cool thing about this car is that the exhaust is cooler than the outside atmosphere, so it can be used to air-condition the passenger cabin!

The question that begs to be asked though is, If I run out of gas, can I run it off my tyres? :)