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Travel Innovations: MDI's Air Pod for Airport Travel

Electric? Water? How about air? MDI’s Air Pod looks like something from a Wii Video Game but for the last twenty years their CEO, Guy Negre, has worked tirelessly to develop vehicles that run on compressed air. According to Wired and Gizmodo, he’s convinced a European airline to use his pods to transport passengers around airports in France and Amsterdam.

As reported: “The AirPod carries four people in a vehicle that is about 6 feet long and weighs roughly 450 pounds. Its single-piston engine is driven by compressed air. The tank holds 175 liters of compressed air, according to Zero Pollution Motors, and can be filled to 350 bar (5,076 psi!) in as little as 90 seconds. That’s enough to give the AirPod a range of about 135 miles and a top speed of 43 mph.” If MDI can land a licensing agreement, they’re hoping to develop more pods for mass production by 2010. However, they’ve got a lot of showing and proving to do before they reach that point. It appears they’re many skeptics, but then again isn’t that a requirement for most ground breaking innovations. Click Read More for additional information and photos.