For the past century or so, we’ve mostly powered our cars using the internal combustion engine. Lately, we’ve made some serious progress with electricity, Hydrogen and biofuels but for the most part we’ve relied on the fossilized remains of trees and ancient marine animals to keep us on the road.
Given that this arrangement involves a series of controlled explosions, it’s hardly surprising that people have been trying to figure out alternatives for almost as long as the car’s been around.
No ad to show here.
As is the case with most experimental car technologies, most of these efforts made their appearances in concept cars. Some of these alternative power sources, such as Hydrogen, are now making their way into the mainstream.
Others forms of power though never stood a chance of making it onto production models or are so far in the future that we’re unlikely to see them any time soon.
It’s the latter that we’re interested in here. The seriously bizarre concepts that offer incredible visions of what could have been or give us fantastical glimpses of what could be are, after all, far more interesting than the ones that made it.
In order to make it onto this list, none of the cars below could be powered by a technology that’s anywhere near going into mainstream manufacture.
The fact that they look a little bonkers doesn’t hurt either.
Nuclear
There was a period, in the not so distant past, when we were obsessed with nuclear power. We thought it would power our home appliances, our aircraft and yes, our cars.
Studebaker Astral
We’ve written about the fantastically odd Studebaker Astral before. Back when Studebaker was still a motoring force to be reckoned with, it debuted its Astral concept. The one-wheeled, flying saucer-shaped car was pretty much what people thought the future would look like back then, nuclear engine included.
Ford Nucleon
Not all concept cars from the nuclear era were quite so strange-looking though. In 1958, Ford debuted the Nucleon which was to be powered by a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle. Based on the assumption that such reactors would one day be small enough to fit in a car, it was to use a steam engine powered by uranium fission similar to how nuclear submarines work.
Air
It’s something most of us have probably though while filling up our cars at the petrol pumps. Wouldn’t it be great if my car could just run on air? A few pioneering souls have apparently decided to answer that question with a resounding “Hell Yeah!”. Admittedly, their chosen medium is compressed air, which does make a bit of a difference.
Tata Airpod
Look at that thing! Isn’t it just the cutest? In 2012, Tata unveiled the Airpod, a compressed air car born out of its collaborative efforts with MDI — a company that specialises in the technology. The one seater concept came equipped with a compressed air tank to power the engine. That tank could supposedly be filled up either at filling station or taken in by an electric motor whilst driving. Top speed? An earth shattering 70km/h.
Honda Air
If the Tata Airpod looks like it was designed by someone with an affinity for lady bugs, the Honda Air looks like something out of the fevered imagination of a teenage boy who’s on the verge of discovering girls.
Envisioned for the LA Auto Show Design Challenge in 2010, the Air has four times as many seats as the Airpod and was apparently inspired by modern roller coasters and skydiving wing-suits. We know which one we’d rather be seen making “whoosh” noises in.
Wind and Solar
It’s a little bit unfair to put wind and solar-powered vehicles on this list. After all, people do race wind-powered land vehicles in a variety of forms for a while now. The same’s true of solar. Right now though it’s seriously difficult to imagine traveling down the road in anything wind-powered without putting your safety at serious risk and solar just doesn’t seem capable of generating enough power. Right?
Venturi Eclectic
Crowned one of Time’s best inventions of 2007, the Eclectic by French electric car company Venturi, runs entirely on solar and wind power.
Venturi claims that the Eclectic can do 50km/h and decided that, weird-looking as it is, it needed a successor: the smaller, more compact Eclectic 2.0.
SAIC YeZ
The SAIC YeZ is so green it has a leaf for a roof. Built by the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) and General Motors and showcased at the 2010 Shanghai Exhibition, the YeZ apparently behaves so much like a plant that it takes Carbon Dioxide out of the atmosphere and returns Oxygen into it.
It manages to do this through a combination solar panels on the roof, wind turbines in the wheels and CO2 absorbing body work. If this kind of thing ever makes it out onto the road expect it to be snapped up by fans of the movie A Bug’s Life.
