NY Local
Friday, May 8th 2009, 4:00 AM
Lombard for News
Shiva Vencat and Roy Szuper met two years ago while watching their sons play soccer.
Because of that meeting, Szuper, an Astoria, Queens-born filmmaker, will show the first 10 minutes of what could turn out to be a movie documentary of major historical importance at the Cannes Film Festival this month.
“Imagine if someone was next to Henry Ford, filming while he was making the Model T and starting to create a whole industry,” said Vencat.
“That’s a very interesting document for future generations.This movie will come down in history as a major piece, documenting the death of one industry and the rebirth of another.”
The thing is, he’s not exaggerating.
Vencat, who lives on the upper East Side, is spokesman and CEO for Zero Pollution Motors Inc. The New Paltz-based company is the American arm of the French firm Motor Development International, creators of the AIRpod, a car that runs on compressed air.
Designed by former Formula 1 racing engineer Guy LeNegre, the AIRpod uses compressed air to power a two-piston engine.
Small and lightweight, the AIRpod already is in use in several countries. Air France is using a fleet of them to move passengers around at Paris’ Charles DeGaulle Airport, said Vencat.
The two-seat prototype model can reach a top speed of about 43 miles per hour. The vehicle weighs 483 pounds and can go 136 miles on a full tank of air.
The car’s range can be increased by the inclusion of a small burner to heat the air as it leaves the tank, said Vencat.
“The burner heats the air, and by heating, it increases the volume,” Vencat said. “And by increasing the volume, it increases the range the car can travel.”
Sticking to green technology, the burner can use any fuel.
“The beauty of this system is you can use any kind of energy – gasoline, ethanol, diesel, vegetable oil, whatever you can get your hands on,” Vencat said.
But because compressed air isn’t exactly readily available about town, at least initially Vencat envisions the AIRpod deployed as fleets of short-term rental vehicles in densely populated cities, more than for individual ownership.
“If the fleet is large enough, you are talking about reducing dramatically the traffic and by reducing the traffic reducing dramatically the pollution,” Vencat said.
He hopes to cut a deal with the city that will allow AIRpods to be left in any legal parking space and not be ticketed – even if that space has a parking meter or is on the wrong side of the street when alternate-side parking rules are in effect.
That’s the only thing I’m asking the city,” said Vencat, who said he has had discussions with Mayor Bloomberg’s office.
“Ideally, the car is not going to be parked long term, because the whole idea is that somebody is going to take it from point A and leave it at point B,” he said. “Someone else will take it from point B and leave it at point C.”
Vencat calls the AIRpod proposal a one-way, short-term rental.
He said the plan differs from Zipcar, the short-term car rental operating in the city.
“Zipcar is a return rental,” Vencat said. “You take it from a garage and you bring it back to that garage.”
“Lots of studies in Europe show that in that system, for every car you put in short-term rental, you take seven and a half cars off the street,” he said.
Szuper, 37, recognizes a script when he sees it. He made his first film, “Concert Joe: A New York Story,” in 1993 while a student at the School of Visual Arts. That movie, made in a “mockumentary” style, follows one man’s attempt to get into the Guiness Book of World Records for seeing the most concerts. It has been seen on MTV and VH-1.
Another film, “Gonzo Music Diaries, NYC,” about subway musicians, evolved to chronicle the birth of a music festival just days before the 2004 Republican National Convention was held at Madison Square Garden. “Gonzo” has been screened at several festivals, including Cannes.
SZUPER AND Vencat met while their sons – Julian, 8, and Rohan, 7, respectively – were playing in the Asphalt Green soccer league. The kids also were students at Public School 158 in Manhattan.
“We got to talking, and I was looking for a new project,” Szuper said. “I could see the potential of the car. As an idea for a film, it’s a no-brainer.”
The major hook for the film, now titled “Revolution in Motion,” was the AIRpod’s inclusion in the Automotive X-Prize Race.
It is organized by X Prize, the same group that funded the Ansari X Prize competition that resulted in Burt Rutan’s successful SpaceShipOne launch and return to Earth in 2004.
The competition will be a race of fuel-efficient vehicles across various terrains – city streets, mountains and deserts. A major criteria of the competition is that all vehicles must be commercially producible and sell for less than $20,000.
The race was scheduled to start in New York City in September, but has been postponed until May 2010.
Szuper who has visited the AIRpod factory says he plans to document the car’s development and follow it in the race.
“I want to do it as a film or a series,” he said. “I see it as ‘Cannonball Run’ meets ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’
“So we have a road race. It’s sexy, but at the same time it has environmental significance,” Szuper said.
To learn more about the AIRpod, visit the Web sites www.mdi.lu or www.zeropollutionmotors.us.
To find out more about Szuper’s production company, visit the Web site www.universalbeef.com.