While I enjoyed watching the guys from Mythbusters find ways to improve fuel efficiency yesterday, it seems they left out the promising potential of a car that runs almost entirely on compressed air.  Zero Pollution Motors is preparing to launch 8,000 Compressed Air Vehicles (CAVs) by 2011, which will be sold directly from factories in the United States. (Hopefully they can get someone to fix up their website sooner!)

Check out this video report from CNN:

(Excuse me, Mr. Beck: “No man would drive a smart car”?! I’ll assume that comes from a place of insecurity.)

This is where we need to be heading to remove ourselves from dependence on polluting fossil fuels, and if we want to drive around in cool looking Jetson-mobiles.  As of now, the cars are priced to sell around $20,000, which is pretty sweet deal considering most expenses will go towards refills of air, or an electric charge for the onboard compressor.  The compressed air motor can take you up to 35 mph and a distance of 80 miles, and then it switches to a second motor which can run on diesel, gasoline, vegetable oil or ethanol.  The next step should be to remove the need for a second motor all together.
takepart / by improving the fuel efficiency of your gas guzzler with Jon’s Hypermiling Tips.