They used to say, "The best things in life are free." Well one thing that has always been free now may cost you money to run your car.

How obnoxious it was when gas stations started to charge for air. Now you may start seeing signs at filling stations that read - "Air $5.00 a fill."

Just goofing around, but not totally. MDI finally seems ready to mass produce its compressed air automobile.

Tell me if this sounds too good to be true - a car that can be filled up for $3, can go 125 miles between fill-ups, and is non-polluting. That's what we could see as a result of a new partnership between French company MDI, and Tata Motors. Tata is the company of course that just launched the El Cheepo champion of the world, the $2,500 Nano.

This particular marvel of efficiency is called the Mini CAT, and it will achieve such efficiency because as mentioned, will be powered by compressed air.

Additional power beyond the compressed air is captured using brake power recovery. This seems like a bit of a dream, but the cars will reportedly start to appear in India, Australia and Europe later this year. MDI has floated a lot of hype in the past, but this time around it seems the company might finally have put some ink to paper.

I'm a bit skeptical though because it seems their website is not quite up to speed with their latest revelations. So instead of wasting finger power rehashing what might not be the inevitable, check out their site and specs at

http://www.theaircar.com/