London, Feb 14: A French engineer-cum-inventor, who has received the backing of India's TATA Group, has announced that within a year he will start selling an "Aircar" for 2,500 pounds.

According to Guy Negre, the OneCAT will be a five-seater with a glass fibre body, weighing just 350kg and will be driven by compressed air stored in carbon-fibre tanks built into the chassis.

According to the BBC, the tanks of the car can be filled with air from a compressor in just three minutes - much quicker than a battery car.

Alternatively, it can be plugged into the mains for four hours and an on-board compressor will do the job.

For long journeys the compressed air driving the pistons can be boosted by a fuel burner which heats the air so it expands and increases the pressure on the pistons. The burner will use all kinds of liquid fuel.

The designers say on long journeys the car will do the equivalent of 120mpg. In town, running on air, it will be cheaper than that.

Negre has been promising to create such a car for more than a decade, and it is only now that independent observers are convinced because Negre has secured backing of TATA.
 
TATA is the only big firm he'll license to sell the car - and they are limited to India. For the rest of the world he hopes to persuade hundreds of investors to set up their own factories, making the car from 80 percent locally-sourced materials. (ANI)