How would you react to someone who tried to sell you a car that runs on fresh air? Perhaps you would think he was peddling a potentially planet-saving technology. More likely you would dismiss him as a conman or a fantasist. Yet that is precisely the pitch being made by French auto engineer Guy Negre, a good-humoured man in his mid-60s who claims to have developed a car powered by compressed air: one that produces a fraction of the carbon emissions of a standard engine, reaches speeds of 30mph-plus, that can travel 65 miles on a one-minute recharge and, best of all, costs from just over £3,000.
Negre is quick to point out the drawbacks of existing eco-car technology. "Hybrids are only marginally less polluting than the most efficient combustion engines," he says. "Hydrogen power is expensive and impractical. Fuel cells are expensive and unproven and electric cars are reliant on expensive, unreliable battery technology."
