New Car That Runs On Compressed Air

I know we've had these threads before ... but it looks pretty convincing to me...as there was actual stuff to see..not just the usual computer animation and a plea for investors.
Ideal 2nd car to run around town in (as long as there is room for my golf clubs alongside the air cylinders )

Maybe a wind powered compressor at home for overnight top-up?

As it's French maybe zere eez une petite chance she will look good n'est ce pas?

Del

<sigh> Don't be lazy. Actually read the car's website. All the information you need to make an educated decision on the technology is there. Do not fall into the same trap as I did with regard to videos. I saw a very well made video of an eccentric inventor that made a robot out of mini parts. It caught and stopped a car as it drove past in a factory setting. VERY REALISTIC (as was the information on the associated website). Turns out it was all a publicity gimmick for the new mini (yes it was a while ago. Yes, way before the transformers movie).

Yes, I know people will ask, the original website is down but there are pages still to be found.

http://www.mobilegizmo.com/27/25.html

18 months of work to produce a convincing hoax, gah no wonder I was first fooled.

It just goes to show you, don't believe everything you see (especially the compressed air car, just look at the information on their website it explains things nicely).

Maybe a wind powered compressor at home for overnight top-up?

No need, it's built into the car (an onboard petrol engine is used to run the compressor). <sigh>

oh bugger....

I saw a video on one of the Channels. A 15-30 minute bit. Very cool. Center seating and all. The designer seemed genuinely motivated in that "I will do it" kind of way - a way I respect greatly.

The damn thing sounded like CRAP though. Cheap and tinny - like an air compressor. If they could manifold the exhaust and give it a bit more testosterone I would be happier.

cr3

It is difficult to carry spare fuel cans, and if you run out far from a large compressor, you and the car are stuck.

Useless for me, I probably can't get behind the wheel anyway.

And of course where I often go, in a diesel-powered Toyota LandCruiser, that could not go, anyway.

Apart from that, it looks horrible, perhaps it's some sort of French joke.

Kind Regards....

Is this the 54th time this car has shown up on CR4?

And probably it's best showing. I suspect it will rise again. Perhaps they should call it the Phoenix.

Hello Blink,

I'm not sure, but this refers:

Kind Regards....

SOUNDS LIKE THIS DESIGN MIGHT BE JUST RUNNING ON

"HOT AIR"

Darn it ! I thought for sure perpetual motion would work this time!

From an energy mass balance perspective, it would be perhaps the most inefficient vehicle ever produced?

From an energy mass balance perspective, it would be perhaps the most inefficient vehicle ever produced?

If not, it has to be very very close.

But that's only if you actually believe all that outdated gas law and general physics stuff. "Out of the box" researchers now recognize that the heat that appears to be given off by a compressor is actually free energy going into the compressor. What we used to call cooling fins are actually energy collection devices, so that, once more funding is obtained for this car, it will be shown that a 10hp air compressor will produce at least 15hp worth of compressed air. With yet more funding, it will be possible to demonstrate the version in which a compressor is driven by the front wheels to power air motors on the rear wheels. Granted, this arrangement only works when the car is going forward (because the air has to be compressed before it can be used) but new studies have shown that cars actually spend most of there time going forward! A large watch spring could be wound up while going forward to permit the occasional rearward travel.

Quite.

Hi Ken.

That French company should hire you as head of PR. You already convinced me to buy such a car!

Probably, after more funded research, we might be able to use just vacuum instead of air. I heard that compressed vacuum has more energy that compressed air. Such a propulsion could be used for deep space exploration as well... Only if you could help me to get the funds!

Where are you, vermin? Words of wisdom on compression of vacuum are required at this location ASAP! Maybe we can just use a never-ending series of these...

Is there a link to the manufactures site? Seen the video, would like to see the engine and the design. Looked like a uniflow engine design used in steam propulsion. Maybe if you run out of compressed air, you could run on steam..... just a thought. Know a couple fellows that are into building neet mono-tube boilers....

More of the SOS being recycled for the uninformed and/or credulous.

Guy Negre is at it again pushing a car you can't buy. He sells contracts to build factories for the contractor to build cars that are marginally useful under restricted circumstances. No factories to date nor cars to sell/buy.

See his latest con page at <http://www.cyber-media.com/aircar/> Invest in a contract for him to build a factory for you at your own risk!

This is just the latest blog/thread about his skin game.

Hello Stirling Stan

I really like the part about aeronautical engines in the future etc

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

.....Calling for Investors, there was supposed to be a World map on that web-page, showing the present licensed areas, and the areas in the World still available, if you want to invest in an area, but no map is showing there, so perhaps there were no Investors to date.

I did like the "fill up for 1.5 Euros" bit, because to pay for a Compressor which will refill in 4 minutes, is going to be expensive - we had them here for CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) in NZ's North Island, and the fuel was cheap, very popular, until a few years later, when the worn-out compressors needed replacing.

Cost of Compressor replacement was some NZ$40,000, and garages just abandoned selling CNG, as they realized that they could never make a nett profit on CNG sales.

All redundant CNG equipment has been scrapped, or recycled, and shipped off to Bolivia, where the same stunt is being tried.

Kind Regards....

Some more information regarding the air car (from the popular mechanics article)

"The $12,700 CityCAT, one of a handful of planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units; MDI says it should cost around $2 to fill the car's carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi. Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car's built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours."

Ooooook. Who would like to point out what's wrong here? There are numerous things but this magical onboard compressor borders along the same lines as a free energy generator. Filling a 340 liter tank with air to a pressure of 4350 psi in 4 hours !! Why don't they just provide a wind turbine that charges up the tank when the car is running (it makes as much sense).

"Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008"

That should be interesting.

Why are MDI's associated company links almost exclusively real estate and hotel investment?

It still amazes me that such an obvious scam (both from a scientific, and practical and logical points of view) can cause such an impact and gain so many followers. Is this mearly a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees (ie- ignoring the obvious and wishing really, really hard that it could be true).

Hello Jack,

After reading about the "carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of air at 4350 psi", I shall be keeping well away from them all.

There were enough problems in New Zealand with CNG (Compressed Natural Gas), at 3,000 psi, and that was contained in special high-strength heavy wall steel tanks, which always groaned loudly as the tank expanded during the filling operation.

Those folks should be investing in Hospitals and Mortuaries, because I expect many Carbon-fibre tanks at their present early stage of development, to burst under the sudden strain at fill-point, or in an accident.

Carbon-fibre is not very mechanically able to resist abrasion, as I have seen an expensive Carbon-Fibre cycle frame rubbed entirely away, where the chain caught and rubbed over it, for several turns of the cycle pedals.

Kind Regards....

Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car's built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours.

You may be misreading this. I think they are saying that you plug in the built-in compressor, and charge up the car while it is standing still (overnight, for example). 4 hours should be possible with a small compressor. 89 gallons x 2175 avg psi /1714 = 112 hp minutes. So to charge in 4 hours would require a compressor output of a little less than 1/2 pneumatic hp.

On the consumption side:

Assuming an average speed of 35 mph, then you'd use a tank's worth of energy (112 hp minutes) in 3.6 hours to go the advertised 125 miles. 112/216 minutes = about .5 hp average, assuming 100% efficiency. It would be a very very remarkable car that would go 35 mph on .5 hp. But if the car were sized to fit people 16" tall...

340 liters... 89 gallons... not too far from two 55 gallon drums. A lot of tankage for a tiny car.

Always be wary regarding reported stories of developments. I am basing my comments on the original source material in addition to this new information. If you are interested have a look at the main companies website for the actual details. Its all there in its <ahem> glory, including the use of a petrol engine to create a hybrid car (guess what the petrol engine powers).

Know of a compressor that is capable of filling a 340 liter tank with air to a pressure of 4350 psi in 4 hours, and be able to fit into a car as they say? Ignoring everything else about the car lugging this compressor around in the car seems like a borderline free energy pipe dream to me. I would be interested if someone could post a link or details of how big the actual compressor would need to physically be to achieve this as compressed air and storage is not my area of expertise. The pressure indicated, the size of the tank and the use of a carbon fibre tank as the storage device just seems like another nail in the coffin of believability to me.

340 liters of air is just over 12 cubic foot of air 12.0069 ft3. I have a six stage pump on a 2 hp electric motor and it would fill that area to 4350 psi in 4 hours 10 minutes. It weighs in at 109.5 pounds for the complete unit. This unit draws 23 amps at 240v or 5500 watts. Figure out the cost of electric in your area and you can see what it would cost to fill your tank with my compressor. I don't know the actual cost per kwh here so you will have to fill in the cost. Remember to include the cost of a compressor also. This is about double the time quoted in the article. So would probably be a little more expensive to fill it faster.

This unit draws 23 amps at 240v or 5500 watts.

That suggests that the HP would be about 5.9 HP, assuming 80% (fairly low) efficiency. Is the 2HP a typo, or maybe the pneumatic HP output? If the motor is really only 2HP but drawing that much power, it would quickly become blazing hot: the waste heat would be equal to a couple stove burners on full tilt.

Here, electricity is $.10 /kWh. So 4 hours @ 5500 watts would be $2.20.

Above, I figured the output of that volume of air would be about 1/2 hp for 4 hours. Unfortunately that's not enough to power a car that holds real people. So, if we assume 10hp as a reasonable minimum for a very limited purpose car, then we'd have enough energy to power that car for about 1/20 of 4 hours, or about 12 minutes. $11.00 per hour to drive your car seem a bit pricey, doesn't it.

That is probably pessimistic. However, 10% is fairly often thrown around as a pneumatic system efficiency number, so rounding a little, I you put in 5 hp for four hours, outputting 1/2 hp for four hours would not be unreasonable.

The data plate is in bad shape but the draw on the motor is 23 amps at 240v. I was sure that it said that it was a 2 hp but upon looking at the damage to the plate I am not sure just what the HP is. Will try to get the frame number and size it from there tomorrow. Thanks for pointing out the error in the HP rating. Will follow up tomorrow when I can get to the shop and look again.

I don't see a motor with your figures being able to do much work for very long or to develop enough power to run the car on that limited amount of air.

Always be wary regarding reported stories of developments.

Fear not. I have not gone over to the free-energy dark side. 1/2 hp is an impossibly tiny amount to run a car on. Even my current single seater prototype, at about 1/3 the loaded weight of the MDI car, perhaps 60% the frontal area and about 1/2 the Cd, requires almost 10 times that to go 60mph.

Sadly, this thing will run for a small number of minutes on air. Long enough to make unsuspecting and incompetent journalists write glowing reviews. Gosh golly! It runs on air! This is even better than the car that runs on water I report on last month!

"This is even better than the car that runs on water..."

Now that one I might believe. After all, I once saw a boat that runs on water...oh, AND air, come to think of it! May be on to something here...

I always chuckle when I remember the alternative energy electric bus that was shown to a group of reporters. "wow it really is quite", why yes it was, it didn't work so they pushed it down the hill and stopped it in front of the press conference (good thing the brakes worked).

Besides, I try and start from basics. As I have pointed out before the energy density of compressed air for a start is much, much lower than the alternatives (for example gasoline is around 9000Wh/l where compressed air is around 17Wh/l). The math just doesn't work out, especially when you are performing an apples for apples comparison which you can do for the air car. Things get worse as the car will likely be heavier than an equivalent gasoline car due to the fact that the air car has a large heavy compressor built into the car that the gasoline car obviously has not (engines look like they weigh about the same, although the air car engine may be heavier, but that is really beside the main point(s)).

Lets put those development dollars where they will do the most good shall we (how about education (no seriously, a lot of people need it, hell, how about just the people assessing and reporting these developments and new "wonder" products). We can bend the natural laws a little but we cannot break them to the extent to make doomed-to-fail products and research work (note - there are some exceptions where laws can be bypassed such as with superconductors and quantum mechanics, but this ain't one of them).

" A French engineer has developed a car that runs on compressed air."

Today I made a huge discovery: my car is running on compressed air..., well, in my tires!

You should all check on yours too.

Just to put this in perspective, I looked for an air motor of a few HP. I found a 6.5HP motor on a concrete saw. It requires 124CFM at 90psi to run it. I looked for a compressor, and found an Ingersoll Rand at Northern equipment: 15 HP 230V three phase. This one puts out 49 CFM @ 90 psi, so it's not big enough. But I could get 3, and I'd have a little CFM to spare. That would be 45 HP to get 6.5 usable horsepower at the tool. That would cost me a little less that $24,000 To compress the air to drive my 6.5 HP motor. Let me think... For $249 I can buy this B&S engine, also 6.5 HP, and its efficiency is positively stunning by comparison. I wonder, which route should I take?

Just for fun, suppose I were nutty enough to go with compressed air to run something needing 6.5 HP. We start with a mix of coal, natural gas, oil, and a small amount of renewables, and generate electricity at the 33% efficiency of the grid in the US. I know I'll need 45 hp at my (very big) plug. Therefore I'd be consuming three times that in fuel at the powerplant: 135 HP worth. Overall efficiency: 6.5/135 or a little less than 5%. Does that sound green to you?

"Does that sound green to you?"

Actually, yes - the same shade of green people go when they are seasick (urp)!