an interesting watch, the car runs on compressed air

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4

Very cool! Thanks for sharing that.

Neat!

Why???????

I bet that sucker costs more energy per mile than a gas engine...

And when one of those tanks is breached in an accident, you have a rocket.......

Ken

As opposed to a fireball when a gas tank is breached?

Seems to me that a gasoline engine is just an air pump anyway. An inefficient one that gives off massive amounts of wasted energy in the form of heat, to say nothing of unhealthy, noxious fumes.

The use of electricity to create compressed air seems like a more efficient use of resources, especially in the case of that little rotary unit. If the tanks are recharged during non-peak generating hours it becomes even more desirable. Less weight, pollution, heat loss; all those attributes add up to a technology worth pursuing IMHO.

I'm sure the energy cost is more expensive now. Prototypes always are. You don't get true effeciency until it can be produced in large quantites.

Its total energy cost is *way* lower then the current crop of gas-electric hybrids or EVs. No batteries to make or have to dispose of.

If they can make the tanks crash safe, I think it is a wonderful idea.

Zach

You have been watching too many movies....

In Hollywood, every car that goes off a cliff explodes in a fireball....

I'ts been a stock trick for years and a pet peeve of mine.... Ask my wife...

In reality, the cops find cars at the bottom of the cliff- unburned.

Breaching a tank from an impact will not cause the tank to explode. Yes, it will leak, but no, it won't explode all by itself. Need something to ignite the fuel. Once it leaks across the ground and catches fire (spark, cigarette from a bystander, hot exhaust,) it burns black and smokey. Ever seen a teener catch fire and burn? I have and no, the tank didn't explode.... The rear tires do puff up and "explode" from the heat of the fire.

To "explode", you need a finely atomized fuel/air mix- like a fuel-air bomb. Hollywood uses them a lot in action movies.

You can try it yourself. Buy a teener with with old gas in the tank that has sat for years. Put a little old gas in a pan and throw a match into it. I was amazed how hard it was to ignite.

With the air engine you burn fuel at a power station (energy loss), convert it to electricity (energy loss), transmit it through an electrical grid (energy loss), and use the power to run an electric pump (big power loss). All of us with air compressors notice that compressing air is hard work for a big electrical motor, and a lot of wasted energy goes out as heat at the pump and the motor. With hi pressure scuba tanks, the tanks get really hot (more heat/energy loss) and must be immersed in water to cool.

Do the math, that air engine MPG efficiency sucks. Bet it is more efficient and less polluting to bypass the power plant with the fuel and put the fuel directly in your tank to burn.

Ken

The nice thing about using electricity to compress air is that all of the electricity comes from one point. That single point source of pollution can be more easily regulated than each car engine can be.

Who knows, maybe this could be more efficient than a gas engine? Compressors can achieve efficiencies much greater than that of combustion engines. Using a highly efficient nuclear plant as an electric source such air engine might be more efficient.

Ken is right, non vaporized gas is very hard to light and almost impossible to mak explode. If you ever see an inner engine camera (there is a website with on), even the gas going into an engine doesn't really explode. It just creates a flame front relatively quickly.

Good points kwales. If this air car is more or less efficient overall, is only a small part of the discussion, IMHO. The bigger incentive is that air can be compressed many ways. Nuclear, geothermal, wind, solar, coal, hydro electric..... any power can be used to "fuel" these cars. In this way many areas of the world can have powered transport based on local resources and technology.


Jim

The tanks being carbon fiber, I think a simple scatter shield over the top to direct

the air and carbon fiber shards downward would make it safer for the driver.

Maybe a hydrogen engine to run the compressor.

Ok, so 'explode' may be a bit dramatic, not unlike the 'rocket' analogy. But as you point out, the presence of an ignition source can easily cause catastrophic results when gasoline gets out of containment. Worse, it doesn't even require impact to leak, i.e, Car-B-Qs on the freeway due to fuel lines leaking on to hot manifolds.

Here in the NW, much of our power comes in the form of hydro, which doesn't burn fuel. The rivers run 24/7 yet energy is lost when generation is curtailed in non-peak times. The air powered car represents yet another form of energy storage, like a battery.

Not saying this is the be-all, end-all solution, but it certainly bears investigation. It will take a lot of small innovations to create a more intelligent mix of power generation and storage. I hope we're not trapped in a world where internal combustion is the sole answer.

One of my big concerns is breaching the air tank.

If you have a compressor for shop air, moisture collecting in the bottom of the tank can cause the tank to corrode from the inside, and when it blows at a low low 60-120 psi (max)....It goes quite a distance and thinks nothing of going through a couple of walls and bystanders or a roof....

OK, one of my buddies worked for Campbell Hausfeld and used to test the tanks in an armored room so I can't speak from personal experience.

He has seen films of actual shop damage (litigation, roof holes, etc, ) and was aware of what a measly 120 PSI can do to make a compressor tank into rocket...

I check my tank now...

So imagine what a really highly compressed tank will do? Way more energy stored within that tank than a lower pressure air compressor tank.

Ken

what sold me is his pronunciation of a-lu-minium