Gallic twists on tomorrow’s transport

French try out new trains, ‘air cars’ and the humanising horse

Fast track
A new high speed train – the AGV or automotrice à grande vitesse – could usher in a “new stage in the competition with the airlines”. Patrick Kron, executive director of French engineering giant Alstom, unveiled the prototype in February. The new breed of trains, powered by motors under each carriage instead of separate locomotives, should deliver city-to-city travel at speeds as high as 360km/h. Cutting the overall train weight is part of the key to their superior energy efficiency – 30% better than the French TGVs they’re designed to replace. It could be the Italians, though, who lead the way in putting them through their paces; the first order, for 25 AGVs, came from the Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori company, who plan to have them in service by 2011.

Driving on air As innovators jostle to bring their different low-carbon car technologies to market, interest is growing in a French car that can literally run on air. Compressed air, that is. The so-called ‘Minicat’, from Motor Development International, is the brainchild of maverick ex-Formula 1 engineer Guy Negre, who has been working for some 15 years on his patented technology and now reckons it could be less than a year away from commercial production.

A deal with Tata Motors should help unlock its potential in India, while in other markets Negre’s plan is to enter franchise deals with local manufacturers – and to keep prices down around the £3,000 mark.

Encased in a lightweight carbon fibre shell, the vehicle can be configured with up to six seats, and should be capable of nearly 70mph. Under the bonnet, cylinders of compressed air line up to drive the pistons that provide the power. Refuelling should be a matter of a two-minute pit stop using a high-pressure hose to refill the cylinders at a service station, or three to four hours using an on-board compressor plugged into the mains. To extend the vehicle’s range from 60 miles up to several hundred, Negre has developed an add-on burner to heat (and thereby greatly expand) the air as it comes out of the cylinders. Although this will release some CO2 if it’s done with fossil fuel, the Minicat’s emissions should still only be around half those of the best conventionally fuelled competitor, at 60g/km.

Real horse powerFor short stop-start journeys along the street – like collecting litter bins, picking up recyclable glass from restaurants, even taking kids on the school run – a small but growing number of French towns are turning to the horse. Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives in Normandy pioneered the employment of a municipal mare, and it’s not just a tourist gimmick; Stephane de Veyrac of the National Stud Organisation says it’s “all about sustainable development and bringing some humanity back to today’s monotonous, machine-driven jobs”. A special ‘hippoville’ carriage has been designed to show how versatile and practical it can be, and the town of Trouville – another early adopter – now holds an annual congress to promote the idea. Some 70 municipalities sent delegates there last year – though the great majority of France’s urban working horses are the 1,000 or so who’ve joined the police, and help to humanise patrol work on the city streets. – Roger East, Rhiannon Lewis and David Howells

25 March 2008

David Howells, Rhiannon Lewis and Roger East