Not air, but hydraulic

Steve Crandall asks whether air cars will ever catch on. Maybe not, but Ford is working on a hydraulic power assist system that promises improved performance, better fuel economy, and lower emissions. To simplify, braking energy is used to compress hydraulic fluid and transfer it to a high-pressure accumulator. On launch, the pressurized fluid is used to apply torque to the driveshaft, giving ponderous vehicles like the E-series van or the F350 Super Duty a nice push off the line. Supposedly, we’ll start to see these appearing in fleet vehicles in the first half of 2004.