Comments on: Voila! A Car Powered By Air

French Duo Says No Combustion, Zero-Emissions Vehicle Runs For Pennies Per Mile

[prelgovisk]

One way to improve the use of compressed air in transportation is already feasible. A brake system connected to an internal compressor can partially recharge the compressed air tank every time the brake pedal is used.

Compressed air as a power source is more feasible than the critics make out. It was widely used before Edison and some of the old technology could easily be updated for use in power transmission. And not just in cars, but for use in factories and homes. Energy to compress air need not come from oil or giant electric plants at all. There are mechanical ways of compressing air and even solar, though slow, will work. Got a bicycle pump or an Exercycle you can hook up to a compressor? Cancel your gym membership and recharge your car yourself!

I doubt if we would be fighting in Iraq now if our cars were powered by air. That should be factored into the %u201Ccost effectiveness.%u201D It seems the cost effectiveness of an oil based transportation system is not so good.

The only real problem is that it is hard to get a monopoly on compressed air, so big business will oppose it.
Maybe we need to use our collective anger against terrorism to decentralize and de-monopolize energy. Air power is a step in that direction. It is a step worth taking. Give air a chance!

There are many facets of this challenge to consider, a signficant one being pollution and this one is not free of them (compressed air production and significant noise). Although an admirable effort, the ultimate solution will need to include consideration of all aspects from the molecular to the universal scale, including pollutant considerations. Hydrogen has promise, but solar energy seems the simplest, most readily available and abundant alternative. It can provide the most efficient form of energy known to mankind with minimal impacts. Once a solar energy collection infrastructure is developed and in place, energy production could be self-supported from collection through delivery. This scalable solution could provide a major attack against terrorism by localizing and providing self-supporting energy collection and distribution. Using the existing energy grid to support this model versus being primary energy source and delivery mechanism would remove the vulnerability of dependence on larger points of failure, reliability on foreign and domestic fossil fuels, and significantly reduce pollution.

[dhague]

This is a lot like the stories of "pollution free" electric cars.

A compressed air car is anything but pollution free, since it takes energy to compress the air in the first place. Since some kind of power plant is necessary to produce the energy to drive the air compressor, we're still talking about a power plant that either burns some fuel or produces reactor waste.

It probably wouldn't be particularly silent, either. Compressed air makes a racket running through any kind of pipes and valves. It's mostly the moving parts in a gasoline engine that you hear, and those wouldn't be much quieter running on compressed air.

[nothappyatall]

A few problems;

1)A small leak in the system, your air is gone

2)Imagine the pressure inside that tank, ever seen a picture of someone near an air compressor tank that blew up from a weak seem? I have, it took the top half of his head clean off.

3) There is NO "zero emissions" the emissions are simply transferred to the power plant which has to generate the power for the air compressor to fill the tank.

[jw218389]

HALLIBURTON and Exxon will stop this!

Bush/Cheney/666 Inc. will stop this because it is anti-Saudi American ;-)

Godspeed to compressed air! You would have better luck flying to the moon...

[slabslab99]

Again, take the time to price an air system, even a Haskel amplifier if you already have large shop air available, then the downstream apparatus. It may cost more than the car itself. It requires final scrubbers that need replacement/replenishment. The air doesn't have to be as clean as a scuba charge, but you can't just pump air into the tank. And if you don't want to buy a system yourself, who do you think is going to, then charge you just $2 to "fill up" your car? Good grief. Try to get a scuba tank filled for $2. Check with the fire dept and see if they can even get a truckload of Scott AirPacks filled for $2 each. Maybe the cost is kept artificially high because of another conspiracy. There are at least four other serious drawbacks with this idea that haven't even been mentioned, yet.

[slabslab99]

I keep going over the numbers on this and I can't see how they can claim the range they do, as mentioned in previous posts. Anyone who makes comments about Cheney conspiracies and Big Oil probably believes in alien abductions. You could consult with any number of other engineers on this. I worked through ideal cases using ten scuba tanks of woven construction which are safest and lightest and won't corrode but are very, very expensive. Larger tanks contain more energy per unit mass but more smaller tanks can be switched to maintain relatively higher system pressures. The hype in this is plain stupid. Forget about driving on the highway at even 55mph. It's ridiculous. Even a 700kg car would exhaust one 80 cu ft tank getting up to speed. Ten tanks would allow you to putt around a while but is still impractical. Believe me, this idea has been around a long time and it just plain fails again and again. At the University there are references to this being done even before 1976. It does work and it is interesting and there is nothing to prevent you from doing this yourself. A variable displacement air motor would work best but I don't know who makes one for this application. Even using a hydrostatic transmission with fluid power being simply charged by the compressed air in accumulators would be better than this.

[slabslab99]

Correction - 2 mins, not 1 sec.

[slabslab99]

This is really an old idea recycled to gain new attention. Consider a scuba tank containing about 80 cu ft at 200 bar only has the potential to return little more than 1 hp for 1 sec. And this is at 100% efficiency. I dohbt you could achieve 30% w/adiabatic expansion. You could use larger 240 cu ft tanks, 300 cu ft tanks, etc. These may offer a higher energy per pound mass. You need a lot of highly compressed air just to run to the store and back - I don't think anyone realizes this. At least they do use motors that are more efficient than vane-type. Another problem is that it is complicated extracting all the energy from a system when the pressure is constantly dropping, then to a transmission with torque/rpm demands that go up and down. The article makes it sound like you fill up your tank like a big tire then drive off. They do give you a clue - $2 worth of electricity. That's a ton of electricity at .10 cents per kw hr. It's easy to compare this to the cost of gasoline, but that's not an accurate comparison. Besides that, someone still needs to invest a lot of $ in the high pressure compressor, and the other expensive apparatus to remove H2O from the air or the tank will have a bunch of water in it. Not cheap. By the time you get through doing all this - no wonder engineers have consistently chosen electric. There are still other technologies which have been otherwise rejected, that are superior to the compressed air stuff. Besides, it's not really zero emissions.

[anomalous4--2008]

The 55-mph top speed need not be a limitation depending on the kind of driving the owner does. For errand-running about town or a short commute to work, this car would be ideal.

I know this from my own experience. I live out on the edge of the suburbs where public transportation is nonexistent, and my "car" is a motor scooter. I'll ride anywhere within 20 miles (limited by the ability of my 50+-year-old rear end to tolerate the uncomfortable seat) as long as it's entirely on city streets or back roads, the streets are dry, and I don't have much to carry.

For longer trips, trips that require highway driving, include heavy or bulky loads, or trips in bad weather, I pay a friend a few dollars to give me a lift, and I coordinate trips as much as possible with him so as to minimize the inconvenience.

With my driving habits, I'd be more than willing to consider an air-powered car. It would remove the bad-weather and carrying-capacity limitations, extend my range somewhat, and cause far less inconvenience for my friend. Since I'm already accustomed to city-street and backroad driving, not being able to drive on the highway wouldn't be all that serious an issue.

As far as I'm concerned, the only real limitation is the absence of "fueling" stations. Get those in place, give me a few thousand dollars, and get in line behind me!

[slabslab99]

No, it's not new. Using the release of compressed air has been demonstrated many times before, but perhaps not this close to a commercial model. In fact, there was a beautiful demo at the Hybrid-Electric Auto Show in St. Louis 1976. There have also been demonstrations of the air powered cars that use liquid air, instead of compressed gas. The air motors are not particularly efficient, do not have a very long life, and they can be very noisy. Air motors are comonly used in industry where there is already a source of compressed air and where they do not want to run electric power. Vane-type motors have low efficiency. I suppose it has to be taken into consideration that there is no chemistry/batteries to dispose of. It is a simple technology.

[talsian]

Okay, did some research. range is 200-300 km (about 150 mile average). 3 mins to recharge at air pump, all night if hooked up to standard electrical outlet, 4 hours with special souped up outlet. Price not set yet. Cool enough. Put a solar panel on your roof and become carbon neutral.

[dbstevens]

The comments about the limitations of this invention are valid, but let's not forget that this is an introduction of something new. Like any such new application, improvements would come with time. We shouldn't expect the first such vehicles to be practical. Electric cars were first introduced in the 1800's and they're only now in production in any meaningful manner. That's because consumers made it clear they wanted them...so the suppression of the electric car was defeated. Development of clean, inexpensive technology will continue if we make it known that we WANT this.

Wo what we should do is to keep communicating about this, spreading the word and insisting on the development of such technology. We have a new weapon to fight suppression such as what happened with the electric car....the internet and our collective voice. So let's keep this idea alive and let the "powers that be" know that we will not stand for suppression of beneficial technology and that we insist on environmentally safe technology. This world does not belong to government and big business, it belongs to us.

[pafaib]

Ok here is the thing these cars wont be out for a loong loong time. Because these big oil companies wont let these cars come out because it will hurt thier multi-billion income.

[pafaib]

Ok here is the thing these cars wont be out for a loong loong time. Because these big oil companies wont let these cars come out because it will hurt thier multi-billion income.

[pafaib]

Ok here is the thing these cars wont be out for a loong loong time. Because these big oil companies wont let these cars come out because it will hurt thier multi-billion income.

[webdepot]

cacee13601-
That's funny... I dive 81 frequently myself... it is far from level, but rather a continual gyration of up and down hills... and while loaded tractor trailers may get up to 75-80 on the downhills, they struggle to do 50 on the up hills, so your arguement on liability is BS and you know it...
I suppose if the ONLY driving you do is on the interstate, then yea, maybe this car in its current state of development is not for you.. for my needs though, which is mostly in town driving, it suits the need perfectly... for those longer trips, the second family car could be used.. or you could rent one on the money you save on gasoline.
Like any invention, or any product for that matter, it is not for everyone... but for those that can make use of a new product, it can be very rewarding.

[cacee13601]

with a top speed of 55 mph its useless cuz the speed on I 81 in NY is 65 and nobody does the speed limit any more so when you get into an accident youd be liable for driving too slow

[webdepot]

cantshutup-
I read that article too... sad that the continued investment/development was dropped, but there were also practical reasons for it's death.
1- The batteries are hughly expensive.
2- like all batteries, they had a finite life span as to how many times they could sustain a full recharge.
3- weight, batteries are heavy..
Even with these shortcomings though, I think the avenue should continue to be pursued. You never know when a breakthrough may come forth.
I'm sure the oil industry (of which both Bush and Cheney have a heavy involvement) will also try to thwart this vehicle.. you can't sell shares in air. LOL... Their options would seem to be limited though... although I guess they could refuse to install the high capacity air compressors (needed to refill these cars) at their franchised dealers.. but would only spawn a new industry of "air stations".

[selrach_us]

Agrim

I gusee we should throw out the concept of vacinnation because the French invented the concept Louis Pasteur. Sounds a bit gingoistic.
Heck we are already burning the fossil fuels at generating stations.

The question is:
Would the increased fossil fuels needed to power air compression be more or less that the fossil fuels being burned by millions of people throughout the world in their individual cars?

Only some scientific calculations can answer that.