Advantages of the air car

lorenzo · Fission Joined: Jan 01, 2005 Posts: 2228

(Just a little detail - I noticed someone posted a press release about the air car, that's why I wanned to add some quick remark.)

Big advantages of the air car over battery or hydrogen powered vehicles are:

-no need for polluting materials as in the electrolytes of batteries (zinc, lead, nickel etc), reducing one of the world's most dirty forms of waste
-extremely simple and durable
-very fast recharge, compared to batteries (2-3 minutes at a gas station) - pretty much like filling her up with gasoline
-no need for expensive fuel cells (which most often, up till now, require platinum or other expensive materials for their catalysts or electrolyte membranes)
-no need for an entirely new infrastructure (as in hydrogen, or zinc-air batteries)

Compressed air may well be a cheap, simple and viable form of energy for basic transport needs.

Any skeptics of the concept?

(A big disadvantage for some: it was invented by a Frenchie Razz

)

ArimoDave · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:16 pm Post subject:

Energy loss from compressing air. Too much energy goes into compressing than you get out. Multi-stage compressors help, but not enough. Range will also be too limited.

ArimoDave
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Wildwell · Fission Joined: Feb 03, 2005 Posts: 2080 Location: UK

Been discussed before. You only like it because it's French Lorenzo.

BiGG · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 1027

.

Air Car Caught in Turbulence

"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."

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pilferage · Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2005 11:49 pm Post subject:

The prototype they built supposedly
-weighed ~400kg more
-didn't incorporate the mechanical regenerative braking,
-didn't have an engine cut out at stops
-the engine itself wasn't what they intend to place in the vehicles
-heavier steel air tanks with less capacity
-inefficient engine/transmission position
etc...

http://www.theaircar.com/tests.html

So, it seems like they cobbled together a less than functional prototype. If they're correct about how much of an efficiency increase we'll see in the production model, then these things will probably be wildly successful.
If not, we still have bicycles! Very Happy

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Enquest · Tar Sands Joined: Mar 29, 2005 Posts: 49

I think it is the best idea there is.

Air compresion can be made anywhere with electricity. And electricity won't be that big problem if you combine nuclair and wind.

Why I think the industry doesn't like it. You can't sell that easy air compression. Everybody would be able to start in own aircompresion gas station without paying company's like BP, shell .... So they would lose enormes control. Thats why they realy would like hydrogen. They can control hydrogen... You need feul cells and the hydrogen. Not everybody can make that.

Thats why there is relative no investment in R&D for the Air option... While I think it would be te best option!

Just look out how many company's are busy with the air R&D and how many with Hydrogen.

lorenzo · Fission Joined: Jan 01, 2005 Posts: 2228

I think you're spot on, Enquest.

The air car does not need a middle-man technology that can be controlled by big corporations. That's why it's such a threatening technology.

BiGG · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Mar 28, 2005 Posts: 1027

Starvid · Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 8:08 am Post subject:

Is there anything that could be done with a compressed air car that couldn't be done with a battery car? Are air cars faster, cheaper, more efficient or have longer range than battery electric cars?
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pilferage · Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:18 am Post subject:

They are cheaper to produce, can use gas/diesel (iirc), and if the manufacturers claims are true, will probably have longer range than most electrics.
Otoh, they are slower and less efficient. The efficiency hinges almost soley on how efficiently we can compress the air (for example, the least efficient air compressors have efficiencies of ~%10-15, which places the air car's efficiency in the range of ICE powered cars, if that can be brought up to ~%70 they'll be very competitive), but I doubt they'll ever be as energy efficient as battery electric. However, electric cars are vv heavy and aren't as cheap.
I'd bet on the air car in the long run because I think we'll go electric in a big way. The amount of energy we can gain from fission is staggering, not to mention fusion if we get that up and running in a few decades.
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"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. "