New Hybrid Will Run on Air

Peugeot is about to star mass production of a car that can run on compressed air with gasoline backup for long trips and higher speeds. The little blue tank in the above picture will provide 80% of the energy.

Why is Peugeot trying to use air over the standard hybrid battery? Compressed air has a couple of advantages over batteries such as the capacity to release more power in a short time, no toxic materials, and longer life for the equipment. The main disadvantage is that when more pressure is stored it is harder to control an accurate release.

Normally people plug their hybrids into an electrical outlet. The cars would instead have air compressed by a pump which is stored in that little blue storage tank in the picture above. When the air is released the energy from the expansion of the air is used to drive the car. The car is estimated to have a mpg of 81.10 mpg  (2.9 l/100km).  However the goal is to improve the efficiency to 117 mpg  (2 L/100km), by the release next year.

The method that Peugeot has found to optimize the system so far is to have the car run on air below  43.5 miles per hour and use gasoline at speeds above that. Similar to other hybrids, the breaking system will be used to store energy when the car is brought to a stop.

The question is has Peugeot arrived to the hybrid market too late and with too different a technology at this point.  The selling point might be the price though as Peugeot is claiming the item will be cheaper than other hybrids, the question is how much cheaper?