The world is slowly but definitely running out one of its most valuable natural resource; oil. Taking full attention of this situation, car manufacturers are coming out with several alternatives to either reduce the fuel consumption on their cars by introducing hybrids, or to not use them at all through electric vehicles (EV). But aside from those two, are there any other alternatives that one could use to run a vehicle on the roads?
While we do have Honda coming out with the revolutionary FCX Clarity that runs on hydrogen, Australian Dean Benstead had some idea of his own in which led to the creation of the O2 Pursuit air-powered motorcycle. On first glance, the O2 Pursuit, built on an old Yamaha WR250R frame looks like any other off-road bike. Almost nothing suggests that this two-wheeler actually runs entirely on pressurized air, until one takes a closer look.
Instead of finding the fuel tank and engine where they were supposed to be, you will find a scuba tank and a tuned engine replacing those two. The scuba tank runs the engine with the compressed air it stores and sends the power to the rear wheel via the same chain final transmission. With that, the O2 Pursuit puts out zero emissions and no batteries needed.
Although the idea of using pressurized air is not a new thing as it could be traced back in the 19th century, it is great to see the idea to gain attention, especially with the potential it brings. And to those who are wondering, the O2 Pursuit could do a range of almost 100km on a canister and reach speeds of up to 140km/h.
