If we have performance tires, performance breaks, performance fuel, why not Performance Air?

I’m going to talk about Performance Air. For people who don’t believe in ideas, buzz off, and for people who do, you are free only to appreciate my ideas and if you choose not to, the same rule about people not believing in my ideas applies to you as well.

Talking about Performance Air, there are many vectors based on which you can perceive the whole thing. But before that let me give you a little bit of background.

Normally the air that we pump in a tire (be it 2 wheeler or 4 wheeler) is called compressed air. Composition-wise the compressed air is made up of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) and other related gases (1%). The figures may vary a little bit, but the point here is that this is the ratio of the gases we have in our tires. Also, in worst case scenarios you also get moisture as a part of the composition which worsens the tire wear and induces rust (that is if you are not running on alloy wheels).

Now get a load of this. Had we filled the tires with pure nitrogen (that’s 100% nitrogen filled tires) instead of the usual compressed air, you would have no moisture (which means your frames don’t rust) and slower air gas diffusion (since nitrogen is heavier than oxygen, it won’t diffuse out of the porous tire walls that easily). Plus, nitrogen is lighter than air, so you save on weight and increased performance. Nitrogen is not a catalyst to combustion, while oxygen (which is present in compressed air) is a catalyst to combustion. So if your car’s on fire, make sure your tires aren’t leaking, unless you want the car to go up in flames! Also, filling up your tires with nitrogen will ensure better and uniform tire wear, and better performance.

I just talked about 5 advantages of nitrogen filled tires as compared to the normal compressed air. The only drawback perhaps is the fact that I might have to pay 10 Dhs or INR 10 to get my tires filled with nitrogen.

Now lets look at this from various vectors. If you are a high value customer who owns a sports car with Pirelli tires or something like that, quite naturally Performance Air makes quite a lot of sense. I mean you spend a ball buying a Porsche lets say, you squeeze your credit cards to the limits to get Pirelli tires and set of Brembo break systems and the likes. Finally what do you fill your tires with? Compressed air. That’s what the whole world uses. Its kinda low class ain’t it? For a performance vehicle, you definitely need Performance Air.

Now let’s take another vector. A normal dude with a Bajaj Discover or a Hero Honda Splendor might not have many performance tweak options available to him. One, because the engineering limitations doesn’t permit him to do so. Two, there is no 'do-it-yourself' kind of stuff available for the rider to tweak. But with the same given set of equipment he surely can have Performance Air in his bike. Dandy ain't it?

Another vector for the Performance Air can be women. Since women are regarded to be lithe and nimble, the sight of a woman dragging a flat two wheeler seems quite pitiful. Mind you, I’m not a male chauvinist, but let’s not get into all that.

The point is two areas where women and vehicles are at a cross is when there’s a flat tire, or when it comes to vehicle handling, especially in the case of two-wheelers. Both are areas which Performance Air can address.

Flat tire probabilities can be reduced since Performance Air has lesser gas diffusion since it has larger molecules than air, plus, handling is improved since tire print on the road is better.

There might be other vectors yet unexplored like children and the safety aspects or something like it. The point is, I’m trying to sell air, at a premium and yet make consumers believe that it’s worth every penny you are paying for. How do I do that, or whether this blog remains only on paper is still a question mark.

(note: it’s been just 2 days since this idea has been haunting my mind, and given a chance I’d put all my money into this idea; for sure. There are very few brainwaves that really make sense to me. Rural stuff is one, this is another. If any venture capitalist is reading this blog, do drop me a line. I’m game. Just one condition. Please let me complete my MBA! Or else my dad will kill me.! :-)