Nano housing
Courtesy chappie
First a $2000 car, next $7,800 housing
TATA, the manufacturing company that is selling the world's cheapest car, is now planning to provide thousands of affordable housing units for people living in India. While not affordable to India's poor or even lower middle class, these apartment units are within reach by India's middle class who make between six and ten thousand dollars a year.
Only 218 sq. ft.
The living units are tiny but built within living communities that include its own garden, post office, meeting hall, schools, and hospital. The smallest units will be 218 square feet. The largest units would be about 373 square feet. Click this link to see floor plans.
An integrated township ecosystem
TATA Housing Development Company Ltd. is engineering a community and neighborhood concept with its first development near Mumbai named Shubh Griha. Their website proudly lists components included within Shubh Griha complex:
- Community spaces for socio-religious gatherings
- Rain Water Harvesting
- Balanced mix of buildings and open spaces – best quality lighting & ventilation for all apartments
- Large vegetated area to ensure fresh environment for living
- Vermiculture – to make eco-friendly natural fertilizer
- Neighborhood Retail spaces, specified Hawkers zones
- Recreational facilities
Click this link for more news about TATA's housing
Source: Business Week
Tags : Tata Nano: solution or pollution?
Just like Ford's Model-T, Tata motor's Nano will make owning an automobile possible for several hundred million families. Use this link to Wired Magazine to learn more about India's 50-MPG Tata Nano.
Test driving the Tata Nano
Huge demand the $2000 Tata Nano
Demand for the Tata Nano is so high the company is using a lottery system to select the first 100,000 lucky owners.
At the moment, the Nano will be offered only overseas, but the company insists a version could be headed to North America in three years. Wired
Will the Tata Nano lead to $5 gas?
If hundreds of millions of poor families can now afford to drive a car, won't that demand raise the price of gas? Millions of new automobile users will surely emit additional carbon dioxide into the world's atmosphere.
The Nano supposedly emits 30 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer, well below the 160 g/km average of Europe's cars and far less than the 130 g/km standard the European Union will adopt in 2012. Wired (click link to learn more)
What impact will the Nano car have?
CityCAT Air Car
Courtesy Deepak
Air Cars in US by 2010?
When I first wrote about a car that runs on air, there was lots of interest. I am really hoping this car is not just a bunch of hot air. Storing energy as compressed air seems simpler, cheaper, and "greener" than using batteries. Electric vehicle battery cost estimates often are around $10,000. They also wear out and need to be replaced.
FlowAIR air cars
Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) has renamed their air cars "FlowAir". ZPM is the exclusive representative for Motor Development International (MDI) in the United States.
Company officials want to make the first air-powered car to hit U.S. roads a $17,800, 75-hp equivalent, six-seat modified version of MDI’s CityCAT (pictured above) that, thanks to an even more radical engine, is said to travel as far as 1000 miles at up to 96 mph with each tiny fill-up. Popular Mechanics
From the compressed air vehicle specifications page I note that the air tank and compressor are 3200 cubic feet @ 4500 psi and an on board 5.5 kwh 110/220 v compressor generating 812 cu ft /hr. Filling up with air from a filling station is supposed to take about 3 minutes.
American made, locally produced
Shiva Vencat, who heads Zero Pollution Motors, envisions small $20 million factories opening in late 2010 or early 2011, each building cars at a rate of one every half hour. Possibly starting in Newburgh, N.Y., new factories would expand production by about 10,000 Air Cars per year.
The City FlowAIR still needs work
If you watch this YouTube video you will realize that this City FlowAir is still a work in progress.
Learn more about compressed air technology (CAT)
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