Now that we have a mandate from and for the new administration to find alternative fuels, build a green economy, and free us from the grip of Big Oil, creating a pollution-free car shouldn’t be far off. But too often we have seen great ideas, innovative patents, and alternative products developed, announced, and then somehow banished to oblivion. Detroit is to blame for a lot of this (case in point, the Tucker automobile). If not all of it. So with today's news that U.S. car makers are hurting, there's a definite sang freud to all this. Or as my Chinese friends would say, huo gai. Serves them right. L.A. used to have a good mass transit system of street cars that was bought up by a consortium of General Motors, Firestone Rubber and Sinclair Oil back in the 1930s, and shut down in order to force people to use cars to get around (on tires, using gas, of course). We have seen carburetors that get 100 miles per gallon patented, bought by Detroit, and buried. We have seen electric cars come and go for decades. I watched a cross country race back in 1981 of solar powered cars using no other energy source. Where did those go? And a company called Sun Motors was around for a while in the 90s making solar cars in Florida, which made perfect sense. They too disappeared. Dick Cheney's handiwork?

So now we have another oldie but goodie making another go at it: a compressed air motor car. As the photo below (courtesy of The Almaden Times in San Jose, CA) shows, this idea has been around before. And skeptics rightly fear that other such dreams have been dashed before too. The original version was actually built in 1932 by a man named J.M. Custer in Piggott, Arkansas of all places, and it worked. But people wanted bigger and faster and it didn't last. The problems were that while it had a range of 500 miles, it only went about 35 mph.

This time we can only hope it will succeed because we desperately need such alternatives to oil. According to the M.I.T. Technology Review, a European company called MDI has developed a new CAT (compressed air technology) vehicle that is for real. An economic version is being built as we speak by Tata Motors of India, until now famous mostly for making the world's cheapest car. This new technology allows for a range of up to 125 miles, and speeds of up to 60 mph, depending on speed and driving conditions, with a hypbrid version that will get 900 miles with a single gallon of fuel. These engines have virtually no moving parts, so imagine how much can be saved just on repairs!

There are drawbacks, of course. Like an electric car, it needs batteries, which need charging, and the lithium batteries are expensive. And electricity itself costs money and creates pollution. Interestingly, MDI isn't even bothering to try to sell this car in the U.S., in the belief that we are still addicted to V8 engines and SUVs and just won't buy it. (Maybe their ugly pugnosed designs could also be a factor?) Maybe now that we have actually elected Obama they'll reconsider.

Meanwhile, out to prove them wrong, a new startup company has sprung up in Silicon Valley called Magnetic Air Cars (MAC), seeking to take this technology one step further, with a new version expected to be able to go unlimited distances at 100 mph. Just what America needs, I suppose. This technology claims to be superior to the European version in several ways in addition to speed and style: more economical batteries, for starters. MAC has developed a much cheaper battery, and a built in turbo air recharger (called an air flow amplifier), so that, at least in theory, according to The Almaden Times (9/11/2008) this car will be able to go indefinitely on no fuel at all and thus produce zero emissions (electric cars produce emissions in terms of an electromagnetic field and also whatever the power plant produces to make the electricity). You'd think Boeing might want to take a look at this as well. Hopefully not just to bury it. Some things really do sound too good to be true. It'll be fun to see how far they get with this one. But this kind of garage company, let's remember, also gave us Xerox, Hewlett Packard, and Windows. Let's hope this time it is really for real. I'd buy one tomorrow if it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Unfortunately, at least at first, it probably will (prototype photo below courtesy of MAC Inc. and The Almaden Times).