A high-pressure assignment

In his travels as a contributing editor for IEEE Spectrum, Peter Fairley has had some unique experiences: hanging out with electrical workers in the Libyan desert, interviewing residents of remote Bolivian villages about their solar-fed LED lamps, and hearing cyclists in Beijing gripe about their government\´s rejection of two-wheeled transport. So when we called last March and asked him to drive a tiny prototype car powered by compressed air and steered with a joystick, the request didn¿t faze him a bit. "A high-pressure job, but someone¿s gotta do it," he responded. Did we mention that the company behind this minicar, Motor Development International (MDI), is putting these diminutive vehicles together just outside Nice, in France?