What's cleaner than battery electric car? compressed air car

[yurbud]

Run time: 03:56 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4   Posted on YouTube: April 17, 2015 By YouTube Member: YouTube Help Views on YouTube: 11581993   Posted on DU: March 21, 2007 By DU Member: yurbud Views on DU: 1498

 
I first saw this on the BBC, but this is a good intro to the technology. Oddly, the company doesn't have North American distributors yet.

You plug it in, but instead of storing the energy in a battery, it's stored as compressed air.

[Marblehead]

1. I like that

we have got to get over the oil addiction and this seems like it would work for millions of commuters. The oil companies have been screwing us since Carter.

[yurbud]

3. a little longer if you count the screwing by killing mass transit and rail

I've been to Europe twice for 4-6 weeks each times and never missed having a car.

By contrast, when I moved to LA, I made it through one semester of grad school without a car before I went insane.

[bullimiami]

2. you still have to compress the air.

There aint no such thing as a free lunch. TANSTAAFL. (bradbury)

If you had a wind or water powered compressor you might be well ahead of the game because you would be saving a lot of inefficiency losses.
But if you are using electricity to do it youre probably better off staying with the electrons.

[yurbud]

4. the advantage is no battery to throw away when it wears out and less chance of electrocuting self

but I'd buy a good electric if it was on the market and could do my 64 mile commute.

[ProfessorPlum]

16. TANSTAAFL is Robert Heinlein's invention

And these cars run while producing no ozone/smog close to the ground, no nitrates or sulfates or anything else apart from what is produced by the power plants . . . where such emissions can (or should) be monitored and regulated more closely.

They also produce their own air conditioning!

[bullimiami]

20. ARRGGHH. got my scifi memories all askew. thanks.

have to remember to look stuff up and not just trust built in storage.

[FourScore]

5. K&R

[NV Whino]

6. These look great

I know they are a ways away, but I get very encouraged when I see things like this.

[yurbud]

7. it's only a ways away politically not technologically

[sasha031]

33. Me too

But I bet the French will have this going in not to long a time.

We won't have them here, the world will be loaded with all kinds of inversions that use no gas, and we will be stuck with our polluting machines.

I wish it wasn't so expensive to import an auto fro your self from Europe, I certainly couldn't afford it.

[phantom power]

8. it surprises me a bit that it's a piston/crankshaft engine.

That doesn't seem like the most efficient way to turn pressure into motion.

[Sherman A1]

9. I brought these up in a posting

a couple of years ago as just a possible alternative and got shouted down then because according to the guy responding to my post...."It would take too much electricity to compress the air and thereby not really save anything"...


:shrug:





Here's the link on the air car


http://www.theaircar.com/

[Gregorian]

11. It's hard to beat electrons for efficiency.

Compressing air is nowhere near as efficient as regenerative braking. And the energy density of compressed air isn't as good as storing electrons either. And unless the process is adiabatic, compressing air loses energy in the form of heat. Something like that. My engineering background is fading into the distance.

It's how we produce the energy to do the things we're talking about that is the issue. Once we find a way to produce energy without having to kill each other, or produce CO2, then all of these concepts will be worth talking about. And then we'll compare them for their plusses and minuses. However, electric motors that regenerate during braking are going to be very hard to surpass.

We're at a stage. The first stage was fire with wood. Then petroleum. Nuclear. Now we're faced with a quantum jump in difficulty. We aren't there yet. And even as we're trying, the population is challenging that next step. Even when we get our energy the problem is not just about energy. But that's for another forum. One that they don't want us to have on DU, for some reason. Only the single most important topic. Once George is gone, maybe we'll start talking about the bigger problem.

[yurbud]

12. he was probably paid to be indignant. I have nothing against batteries, but what the hell--

this looks simple and clean.

[ProfessorPlum]

17. I had the exact experience

He must lurk around, waiting for this topic to come up.

On the other hand, it's really cool to see this video. No doubt it will be embargoed and subject to a news blackout in this country.

[sasha031]

34. what a dream vehicle and idea

Yes don't you just love open minded people...

[IndyOp]

10. Whoa! Less than $15,000 and on the market soon! Better than a Prius! (n/t)

[immoderate]

13. Don't hold your breath.

Compressing air is like compressing a spring.

You might as well design a wind-up car. This doesn't seem practical to me. Not enough storage capacity. Even if you find free green energy, you can't stuff enough air into a car to move it very far.

If any engineer types have some figures to refute this, I'd love to know. :shrug: Looks like :+ power.

--IMM

[IndyOp]

14. I am not at all an engineer, but they give specific details in the

video about re-charging the cylinders and also explain that they are constructed of special material that eliminates risk of the cylinders exploding in a collision. You would have to use electricity to recharge the cylinders and gas can be used for long trips. Given that the vast majority of miles use air compressed by electricity - so long as the electricity becomes cleaner and greener then so do the cars simultaneously. It is a lot easier to "police" the clean-ness of a few hundred electrical plants than it is a few million cars.

[yurbud]

15. yep--the advantage of batteries as well as compressed air

[immoderate]

22. Yes, I've heard about this for years, so where's the beef?

I'll be happy if it works. I don't think just air can retain that much energy. I'd like to see some independent tests.

--IMM

[ProfessorPlum]

18. The storage capacity is explicitly addressed in the video

Did you watch it? That's why the car is made of lightweight materials, for one thing. They also mentioned you could drive from LA to NY on one tank of gas, so the storage capacity actually exceeds that of current cars.

If you wish to bring the air car low, I would suggest attacking the lessened safety of being in such a lightweight vehicle. I think they've addressed most of the other concerns.

[immoderate]

21. I've been hearing about this for years.

Still haven't seen anything hit the roads yet. I don't think that light weight is unsafe, BTW. It's more complex than that.

They talk about getting 200 km out of a tank (air), but the tests I've seen, they get less than 6 km.

--IMM

[ProfessorPlum]

23. if you have a link concerning those 6 km tests, I'd be interested

So far, the only information I've gotten is from the company itself - apart from this video. If there are outside tests that would be good information to have.

[immoderate]

26. Couldn't find it. Sorry.

I have a recollection of seeing it (or something like it) over a year ago, the last time this came up on DU. I couldn't find it this time. I could be wrong, but that's what I think I saw.

I am not sure how to work the actual numbers, it's been a long time since I took mechanics, but my feeling is that compressed air doesn't store enough energy to get practical range. A gas/air hybrid might do better because of efficiencies. That seems to be where they're going. I'm not as skeptical about the safety of light vehicles, though.

--IMM

[ProfessorPlum]

27. well, so far we have the claims of this company

versus your "feeling". We'll see what happens, but it's going to be exciting to see if this technology can actually deliver. Europe is ready for it, I'm sure.

[immoderate]

29. That "feeling" should be easy to translate...

...by someone who knows how to plug in the numbers. They have "claims." They have not yet been borne out. A lot of their "business" seems to be getting investors. After several years of those claims, there is no outside verification. There have been many claims by many companies that haven't been verified. How many times have we seen water proposed as a fuel? The air car claims are not so ridiculous, and the hybrid version does appear to offer some efficiencies. But my feelings are not arbitrary, and are at least somewhat educated.

--IMM

[immoderate]

30. Found the review...

From Wired News:

Air Car Caught in Turbulence

By Brian C. Wilson
Sept. 29, 2003

(Note the date of this review. This car has been "going into production" since 1998!)

Worried about rising gas prices and automobile pollution? Relax. If a European company has its way, cars could soon be running on air.

By the end of this year, Moteur Developpment International, a 12-year-old company headquartered in Luxembourg, says it plans to distribute model fleets of so-called "air cars" in Spain and France.

<snip>

But at MDI's grudging admission, the prototypes do not yet live up to their promised levels of performance. In fact, in the only published road test to date, one of the cars traveled a little over seven kilometers (4.5 miles) on a full tank of air. With the proper materials and a few refinements, MDI insists it will go much farther.

Perhaps more interesting than the technology is MDI's business model. Rather than setting up a single large factory to make and distribute the cars around the world, MDI has divided the world into 400 territories and is selling exclusive licenses to regional groups to manufacture and sell the cars locally. They have already sold 50 such licenses in countries including France, Spain, South Africa and New Zealand.

http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,60427-0.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2

While this is not conclusive, there certainly is room for skepticism. Without some sort of compressor on board, I don't think it is practical for more than a golf cart. But I could be wrong. :)

--IMM

[ProfessorPlum]

32. Thanks! n/t

[wildbilln864]

19. Fantastic!

Thanks for posting this! :hi:

[Redstone]

24. Inefficient. Ever touch a compressor while it's running? They get damn hot. That right there

is wasted energy. Sorry to piss on your parade, but this one's a dead end.

Redstone

[yurbud]

25. ever touch an internal combustion engine even when cooling system is working?

I still got scars on my hands from brushing against one accidentally.

[ProfessorPlum]

28. I'm guessing the company that is designing these cars has

thought of this, Redstone.

Did you know that people thought heavier than air flight was impossible, too?

[Singular73]

31. Well you better give them a call and tell them whats what.

Silly french. I'm sure someone was peddling that car when the cameras werent lookin too.

[rman]

35. "drive a week for a few dollars" - can't be that inefficient