The Air Car

Doesn't really look like the figures add up, but that's assuming a big cylinder for the compressed air.

If the reservoir is constructed as part of the vehicle structure and 'regenerative' braking could compress further air... who knows?

It certainly needs this sort of project to shake up the auto industry.

(pencil in for all the usual hot air/politician jokes for yourselves)

This old chestnut again (I assessed this company a few months ago when I first found out about it). Well lets have a look at the energy density figures again shall we.

Gasoline 9000 Wh/l 13,500 Wh/Kg
LNG 7216 Wh/l 12,100 Wh/Kg
Propane 6600 Wh/l 13,900 Wh/Kg
Ethanol 6100 WH/l 7,850 Wh/Kg
Liquid H2 2600 Wh/l 39,000 Wh/Kg (un-contained)
150 Bar H2 405 WH/l 39,000 Wh/Kg (un-contained)
Lithium 250 Wh/l 350 Wh/Kg
Flywheel 210 Wh/l 120 Wh/Kg
Liquid N2 65 Wh/l 55 Wh/Kg
Lead Acid 40 Wh/l 25 Wh/Kg
Compressed Air 17 Wh/l 34 Wh/Kg
STP H2 2.7 Wh/l 39,000 Wh/Kg (un-contained)

The compressed air powered car has been around for a long time in one form or another.

How do you get compressed air, well you need to compress it (which uses power). There is no free lunch. How does the MDI air car get its compressed air, well it compresses the air using an electric motor and compression plant BUILT INTO the car. Beware false marketing and efficiency claims, this is just the old story of taking one form of energy and converting it into a less useful form of energy and then using that form of energy. A scam (and a blatantly obvious one at that, no group of qualified and experienced engineers could be that stupid).

well it compresses the air using an electric motor and compression plant BUILT INTO the car!!!! D'uh??

Whoops I missed that! ...like you say that's pretty dumb!

Sometimes you can hide the stupidity of a design in plain sight and people won't see it (especially if it is in the middle of a professional looking website). Free energy scammers do this all the time, the trick is of course to review the material and data with an open mind and some actual knowledge of what they are trying to do and what works in the real world. Problem is some people will only see what they want to see (ooooooh, free lunch).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily advocating this thing, but I think you may be dismissing it a bit prematurely.

First of all, they are only claiming a range of about 100km on the air-only vehicle. The on-board "range extender" on the compressed air/gasoline series (series meaning that the gas motor charges the compressed air tanks, rather than driving the wheels) hybrid vehicle is gas, not electricity. The compressed air is an alternative to batteries as an energy storage medium. Your chart shows it has more energy by weight than lead-acid batteries.

You can charge the tanks overnight (off-peak hours) at home with an electrical compressor. However, the advantage to this idea is to charge the tanks at a filling station with compressed air that is generated (again, during off-peak hours) by wind turbines, which can produce fairly steady power 24/7. The filling stations are the intermediate bulk energy storage sites for the compressed air. This makes sense.

A similar proposal exists to build industrial parks around this kind of idea, in order to power all the pneumatic tools and machinery from a common bulk-generated source, rather than each factory producing its own compressed air independently, less efficiently AND during peak hours. This also makes sense.

I personally find it easier to be jaded, judgemental and dismissive (and crotchety) as I get older, that it takes more effort to remain open-minded and willing to take in all relevant information before drawing conclusions.

But I think it's worth the effort.

You made a good remark: nowhere DMI states that the car would run for free. They only claim that storing the "green" generated energy in air is one way to go, and they are quite right on that. As they use the chassis of the car, the added weight of the compressed air container is limited, this also improves the overall efficiency.

The basic version has a range of 100 km, which is OK for 95% of all personal transportation needs. Who drives more than 100km a day?

I'm also skeptic on it: it is a small car and this will limit a lot of owners. We just don't like small cars.

Here's an idea: pipe all the limitless hot air put out by politicians and activist groups and use it to drive wind turbines. The wind turbines in turn will generate electricity to power electrical cars, or electrical everything else for that matter. Now everyone really does get a free lunch. If this idea sounds ridiculous, at least it's still far more believable than free energy and all that crap.

I would have thought that anyone who has used air tools
- like a nut runner (zip gun) would appreciate the volume
of air required is HUGE! In the order of litres per second;
and that is just for a hand tool! (if one can stand the noise!)

To propose an air tank for a "tool" the size and power of
a car is bordering on the ridiculous. (yes?)

This is not including any explosive mixtures naturally, as
coal gas (bags) was used in car containers during the war.

I think there is a lot more mileage (excuse the pun) in
using a vacuum - something very few people consider.

The exclusion of energy can be as powerful, if not more
so, than trying to create it. Can a pull be more effective
than a push? There's a whole new debate!

jt.

Have a free notice board on: http://www.mfnb.at

I know what you mean. Air tools and air motors that are commonly known are very inefficient and noisy. They claim to have a highly efficient air motor, but are very close-mouthed about it, so we will have to wait and see.

Yeh..as a vacuum is just nothing..it wouldn't take any room at all?

(joke guys...obviously vacuum is less efficient than compreesed air as it can only be 'stored' at 1 bar whereas air can be compressed at 5,10 bar...whatever you can get away with safely)

Hi Del. Vacuum has been used to power trams in the late 1800s. I cannot remember where but it was used in at least one city in England. There was a tube running in the middle of the road which had an opening on the top, the opening had two leather flaps to seal the tube and the tram had a piston fitted to the underside. This piston was then sucked along by the vacuum tube, thus imparting forward motion to the tram. Nothing is new! Spencer.

Yeh, Adam Hart Davis did a good program on it... it was at a seaside resort as I recall.... in the South West?

Problem was rats eating the greased leather seals as I recall....

Damn those rodents.... .

He made a mock up with a little trolley, some drain pipe and a vacuum cleaner... which worked .

Hi Del. Google vacuum driven trams, you will be very surprised! Spencer.

Cheers Spencer!...good call!

Dunno if this was the specific link you had in mind?

A good read and pics too!

Ha we've beat Kris to a link... shhhhh don't tell!

He's probably still in bed. Spencer.

Hi Del, No, this was not the specific link I had in mind, but it helps. I learned about it during my engineering studies in 1965. Spencer.

I wonder if the people making this car are smart enough to use the waste heat generated from compressing the air to help vaporize the gasoline used to compress it, allowing it to burn more efficiently and making the car as a whole more thermodynamically efficient.

Not that it really matters. You'll never gain mainstream acceptence for alternative energy vehicles untill you can

1) make them sexy (if money wasnt an option and mileage was the same, would you buy a hybrid corvette, or a toyota prius?)

2) make them comfortably seat its passengers/cargo (think more buick and less civic size-wise)

3) make them powerful enough to enjoy driving them (250+ rwhp in my opinion)

4) make them as inexpensive as this gasoline counterparts, both in initial cost and in repairs/maintenence (have you seen the prices for replacement hybrid batteries?!)

Someone know about Armando Regusci? An inventor that is trying to build a reliable compressed air car, here's the link http://www.airenergycars.com

All these ancient solutions were meant to solve problems like fuel supply and danger.

Steam driven locomotives sometimes exploded, with horrifying results if it happened in the middle of a city. The smoke of the incomplete burning was a problem, dragging the coal was also not appreciated. (and in/around mines the hot surfaces caused safety issues)

electric propulsion was non existent and to expensive to install.

For this reasons they made compressed air factories outside town and distributed the air in tubes along the trajectory.

Nowhere you find that the cars could run for miles.

And the size of the system was also important: Small/low long tubes could pass through narrow passages.

But if you read well the compressed air could be a nice solution to the polluting city traffic: small distances to cover, lot's of regenerative breaking. Slow traffic with limited power needs. And the exhaust is: air and with a decent air motor it can be oil free. (filters can take the oil out)

Wind and tidal energy can compress the air when wind is available, you can easily store this form of energy and distribution is also not polluting in case of a spill.

The but: in case of an accident the air in the chassis will escape, which could result in projectiles that will fly at a decent speed for some meters. (new specific crash tests to release these cars for road usage are needed)

Of coarse you can make the car of rubber, quite handy as you know that you need a refill when the roof comes to low. (saves the cost of a pressure gauge)

Of course you can make the car of rubber, quite handy as you know that you need a refill when the roof comes to low. (saves the cost of a pressure gauge).

What a great mental image that gives...rubber cars all bulging and bouncing along ..great...I want one!

Clearly many of you downing this principal of a compressed air car should in fact be studying for qualification in modern language! The reason is you are fluent in utter bollox !

You obviously don't understand the basic laws of thermodynamics or have any idea about PV=nRT

The principal is not to be likened to air tools, the system efficiency is boosted by staged release and rehearing of the air as it is depressurised. Thus a minimum of three stages are needed to get the efficiencies needed to turn an engine for a long enough period with the required torque to provide a usable car. The principal has been used for over 70 years in trams and various vehicles. It works.

The cylinders can be recharged by plugging in to the mains, or using the alternator and or solar cell to charge a battery that operates a compressor when the pressure drops in the tanks, like standing in the car park at work all day ? It can also use a small petrol engine to drive the compressor.

The cylinders under the car are made of lightweight carbon fibre and simply split in the event of a crash, spilling out the non-toxic air. Compare this to a 20 gauge steel tank of petrol in the back of most family cars, I know which it prefer!

See the following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4

Visit the web site http://www.theaircar.com

Don't speculate when you have not done the research

BS.

PV=nRT is a key reason for the failure of the MDI air car (and others) ever to achieve its stated goals and milestones. As compressed air is cooled during and after the compression process, it loses energy. If you subsequently add heat to the air (as you suggest) you are adding additional energy which must come from somewhere at a cost.

Mexico City is not awash in Air Cars (as it was to be in 2002, per MDI hype), Tata is not making them, etc. etc.

PV=nRT is not the reason the air cars are viable, it is the reason they are not. For efficiency, the number of energy conversions must be kept low. How nutty to go from electricity through the incredibly lossy compression and storage process, only to use it in a low range car. Naive, ill-informed people somehow get the idea that you can fill up at a gas station with low pressure (100 psi) air and go somewhere. Of course, highly specialized compressors are required, and 4000 psi storage is required for even very short range.

The cylinders under the car are made of lightweight carbon fibre and simply split in the event of a crash, spilling out the non-toxic air.

Come now. This is an intentional distortion. The tanks are heavy and very large. Only the material from which they are made is light. (A ton of feathers weighs exactly as much as a ton of lead.) "Simply split" with air "spilling out" is a gross and intentional distortion. You can stand near a rupturing 4,000 psi air tank if you'd like, but people can and do get killed from such explosions. No engineer would treat this hazard so lightly and dishonestly. OSHA requires protections on even low pressure blow guns (used for cleaning things) because even at relatively low pressure, compressed air is an injection hazard -- in other words it can blow throw your skin and into your blood stream.

Your YouTube video has been removed for terms of use violations. The other link to MDI's commercial site has no research value -- it's all hype. Instead, provide a link from a reputable independent study at a university or government agency that shows that the MDI vehicle attains the 120 mile range claimed on air alone without any gasoline or electric on-board storage. Failing that, provide a link to bona fide test results that show even half that range on air alone.

BS, utter and total.

No need to even begin to talk about the environmental costs of burning coal to create electricity to then throw away the energy, (and suffer the additional pollution) by running the inherently lossy compression process. Even if the MDI car could achieve its range claim, it is still a very bad environmental and resource depletion cycle.

I am the founder of an LED lighting company and I hold a few patents in the development of energy efficient products. I am constantly amazed when a group of engineers get together and bash innovative new technology solely on its energy efficient merits. I could design the best LED light bulb in the world with the highest efficacy and the longest lifetime but I probably would never sell more than 10 pieces. On the Air Car - the technology has been with us for so long - and it does work. It may not be the "ultimate" in use of energy...but there is something everyone misses. I cannot drive up to a local gas station and plug in my electric car to be charged...2-4 hours would be a long wait. I can drive up my hybrid electric car but that may cost me about $10-15 USD to fill it up with gasoline. Now with the air car - we all do agree that I could drive into almost any gas station in the world and pay about $0.50 USD and fill up a car tire with air - they are already at every gas station. So while hydrogen would be the best form of fuel for the ultimate in efficiency - I am not sure that following behind a large tanker on a freeway that is filled with compressed liquid or hydrogen gas would be the safest if it were to jack knife in a car accident. So can we all agree that the Air Car is perhaps the best way to develop a technology with a known fuel source to everyone??? And one more thing - on electric cars - energy efficiency is fantastic but replacing batteries and discarding of batteries - well that is another story. Do you know how much money it cost and how much energy is spent to recycle a hazardous battery chemistry? So engineers - appreciate technology that is practical and cost very little and has an operating model that is straightforward. I will be in NICE France in 2 weeks and I will go visit MDI and I will go and evaluate the Air Pod myself. Any questions you all would like me to ask the inventor? Best to all.

Please read entry #26 and understand what is involved. These engineers that "bash" the idea do it for a very good reason: it cannot work. This technology might be fine for rolling around the parking lot of a large plant but will not hit the streets of a city (efficiently, anyway). And no, 100psi gas station compressor will NOT let you fill up in 2 minutes and be on your way.

No magic solution....

regards,

Let us be reasonable: Hydrogen in the biggest scam of all.

A very bad efficiency in the energy cycle and a very impractical storage.

Battery driven remains the best solution for the future: the life cycle of the battery is indeed the problem.

The availablilty of the required materials for the 100 kWh batteries for each car is another problem.

This forum has the best audience possible: engineers with experience knowledge and history, of all religions genders and colors, can discuss without political boundaries or financial issues.

None of us can produce a louder voice, this forum has no preference at the start. No green washing or oil drenching.

This forum brings out the real issues behind some "nice" ideas, that is why we are not so frequented by the typical scammers.