A French inventor managed to create a car that is essentially electric, without the high costs of an electric car. It has none of the toxic elements of an electric car (such as lithium batteries) and no CO2 emissions. It runs on compressed air. Their 7k car costs less than 1c/mile to drive!
MDI's website
The Volt is getting all the press and has been for some time, but MDI's car is the real land-breaking technology.
The car is unique in terms of costs. While the Volt and other electrics will start at $40,000, MDI's cars start at $7,000.
The cars give you an amazing cost savings per trip. You can travel 30 miles on a quarter!
The downside is its top speed-- however the more expensive models can go as fast as you need.
Having compressed airs in America would allow for a more efficient use of energy here, as electric power is something we aren't maximizing use of off-peak. (You can't shut off a power plant at night). Because it lacks a battery (and the need to protect the battery) it is super-light.
Without compressed air, I don't see how we're going to get off of carbon sources for driving. Electrics are just way too expensive. The problem with the electric cars is that we keep talking about "future" technology, or future prices for batteries and cars coming down. It's a bit idealistic at this point to talk that way. Sell a $40,000 car and nothing gets realized in real numbers of the population switching over. Many Americans want to, but they can't afford the cost of a hybrid or an electric. The bonus about compressed air cars is that they are not "hypothetical". But we need to get on the bandwagon. I don't care that someone else in another country came up with it. You don't need to reinvent the wheel, just to say you made it! In a depressed economy, which it looks like we're going to have, this would be an ideal car to have around. All the money used to run the car would stay "in" the country.