Yes, that headline is correct. XP Vehicles, Inc. is developing an electric-powered car with an inflatable body. The company is still in the early R&D stages, and hopes to have a prototype done this year and begin volume sales in 2010. As with all R&D, I would imagine both of those dates to be pushed back a bit.

The inflatable parts of the car are actually a fantastic idea, so long as issues like puncture resistance and simply being blown away are dealt with (XP Vehicles says they are). The “air bags” are essentially the same bags that have been used on NASA’s Mars rovers, and incorporate the same puncture resistance of tactical SWAT team gloves and doctor’s gloves to prevent accidental stabbing. Sounds like some sort of kevlar type material. XP also says that due to special ballast technology and aerodynamics, the vehicle will not simply blow away once you get above 20 mph. This is a good thing.

The whole package is hoped to be shipped to the consumer in 2 boxes, and can be assembled by 2 adult high school graduates in 2 hours. No timeframe is given for those who have not graduated high school, but it would presumably be a bit longer by the company’s statement. Alternatively, local dealers will (hopefully) have some preassembled for those less inclined to assemble their own car.

The biggest potential benefit is safety. By virtue of the design, you are literallly surrounded completely by airbags. So imagine the benefit you get from the airbag in your steering wheel, and now multiply it by the entirety of your vehicle. Perhaps even better, though, is the absence of the rest of a normal vehicle. Most of the trauma of accident victims comes from their interaction with the body of the car as it crushes and bends around or even into them. With an airbag setup, there really isn’t much damage that can be done to the occupants. In fact, XP states that the airbags provide the additional side benefit of being able to protect occupants if a car is accidentally driven off of a cliff. No specific height was given, but I await the day when cliff height survivability is listed right next to your bumper’s 5 mph rating. I’ll be curious to see how the car would fair against a Hummer or 18-wheeler, but I’m sure it would be leaps and bounds better than a motorcycle or Ariel Atom.

XP claims a “2500 mile range per charge,” but this is a little misleading. According to their FAQ section, you can accomplish this by buying “recharged” cassettes - aka a battery for those still in 2008 - along your route. This sounds a lot like how I can travel to San Francisco currently in my Saturn by buying gas at points along my route, which I assure you is definitely not newsworthy by any means.

As with any vehicle, performance is always my primary criteria, and no information is given yet for XP’s prototype. In theory, I think an inflatable car has a lot of potential as a performance car, and even as a track car. Since most of the car will be air, it should weigh virtually nothing. This can make every aspect of its performance excellent. Additionally, you have the benefit of the body withstanding minor impacts virtually unscathed (as you would probably just bounce off because of the airbags) as well as offering much greater protection in major impacts with, say, a wall at over 100 mph. Demolition Derbys also would never be the same, as they would probably just continue until everyone ran out of juice.

The legal challenges to actually certifying such cars for the road should prove very interesting indeed. There are a whole slew of regulations that car manufacturers must adhere to, and many of them simply are irrelevant or would not translate in any way to an inflatable car. Mind you, that doesn’t automatically mean that an inflatable car is more dangerous, it just means the current regulatory system probably can’t handle their introduction. Hopefully that won’t prove too much of a bottleneck, as this is certainly an ingenious idea that should hopefully prove viable with a little support.