The light-weight automobiles come in two variations: The Minicat for cities and urban markets and the longer-distance Citycat. The Minicat looks something like a 3-seater Smart car replete with a 4-cylinder engine.
At 2.65 metres in length, the car is being billed as easy to park and non-polluting. It has a maximum speed of 110 km/hour and gets 150 kilometres between air fillings.
The car can be filled up at home on a 230-volt connection in about four hours. Or, if you can find a high-speed filling station, it takes two minutes to fill up and get back on the road. Details of the longer-running Citycat have yet to be released.
To be sure, early trials have failed to live up to the hype – the air car got considerably less than the hoped for 150 kilometres per fill-up. But, with at least one contract in place, and city officials clamouring for inexpensive and non-polluting vehicles, the time may have finally arrived for the air car.
And, don’t underestimate the guilt factor in speeding the car to market. European consumers are feeling sufficiently remorseful about relying so heavily on their petrol-guzzling autos.
According to a recent European Union study, 78 per cent of EU residents believe that driving a car has a negative impact on the environment. Still, nearly a quarter of respondents say that under no circumstances would they use their car less as they have no other means to get around.
If Negre has his way, perhaps we won’t have to part with the beloved automobile after all.
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Bernhard Warner is a technology reporter based in Rome. He is the former European Internet Correspondent for Reuters and, prior to that was a senior editor at The Industry Standard. His work has appeared in Wired, The Times Online, Time and The Guardian, to name a few. He also works as a Web 2.0 consultant for Custom Communication
Published on 1 August 2007
