Thoughts about air powered car?

[shecky]

The Air Car

Any thoughts on this thing? Sounds interesting. I'd be interested in finding how well it works in real world use.

 

[Walter Wayne]

I've only looked at the page for 2-3 minutes, but will come back later. My first impression, it keeps on bragging about zero-emission but then notes that the fossil fuel engine is used to refill the compressed air tank?

Walt

 

[Jon_in_london]

Im too knackered to do any real in depth analysis but my "pile of utter crap 'O' meter" is going off the scale!

 

[tedly]

Remember your basic gas laws? When you compress air it heats up. That heat is lost for energy storage, as it's very difficutl to keep the heat in the storage tank. If you want to see the proportions look at a 10cfm compressor, and a 10cfm die grinder or drill. The tool fits in your hand, the compressor fits in your truck.

 

[Ziggurat]

Remember your basic gas laws? When you compress air it heats up. That heat is lost for energy storage, as it's very difficutl to keep the heat in the storage tank. If you want to see the proportions look at a 10cfm compressor, and a 10cfm die grinder or drill. The tool fits in your hand, the compressor fits in your truck.

You're right about this, although there's one possible saving grace. The web page seems to suggest this is a hybrid design, with an on-board fossil fuel-driven compressor to replenish the air supply. So while compression generates heat in the tank, expansion (from releasing the gas) cools it, and if it stays at a relatively constant pressure you may not loose energy from heat. So basically what you can end up with is essentially the equivalent of an electric hybrid, but with compressed air serving as the intermediary storage. That still gives you the possibility to run with a smaller fossil fuel engine that runs at peak efficiency for recharging this intermediate storage. The one thing that's not at all clear from this is if it actually has any advantage over electric hybrids, and that's what I'm most sceptical about But it's not an impossibility that there might be some advantage, I think we'll just have to wait and see. And of course perhaps the most important factor of all, the cost of the whole thing, is still completely unknown.

 

[shecky]

I find the site really unclear about this. I think it suggests the vehicles can also run without the fossil fuel-driven compressor at all, running on compressed air only stored in tanks. Which if this is the case, makes one wonder about safety issues, considering the claim that it has a range of 300kM, the immense pressures such small tanks must endure. I don't understand if the fossil fuel-driven compressor is used constantly or only to extend the range of the vehicle or if it';s simply a alternative implementation spelled out in a patent somewhere. It's clearly touted as a zero emission vehicle, which I presume means "no combustion exhaust", but maybe the definition is a bit more loose than that.

Looks like they're seriously courting investors, including in the US http://www.zevcat.com/. They seem to estimate such vehicles to cost around $15,000 to $20,000 if and when they actually do hit the market. The site also has some events in general SF bay area, one of which is sponsored by the San Francisco Tesla Society (uh oh... mentioning Tesla always raises a red flag in the credibility dept). Don't know if any of these event will feature a working vehicle or not.

 

[WildCat]

My Isuzu runs on air, you just have to mix a little gasoline into it.

 

[Jim_MDP]

uh oh... mentioning Tesla always raises a red flag in the credibility dept.

Gee, why's that?

Why just last week, PBS ran a special on him that stated at the end we should be thanking his existance for everything from the power and infrastructure we use to the Earth continuing to orbit the Sun. Inclusive.