It Runs on Air?

And pigs can fly. A vehicle that produces it's own power?? Come on.

The car exists and works OK. It does NOT produce its own power, if somebody claimed this it is a big stupid error. It was developed by a team in France and there is a contract to manufacture it in India in quite big series. The car is thought for city usage the scope being a pollution drastic reduction it is not a "performance" car for fast highways!

The only concern I have is mentioned by Tornado: it is how the system would react in case of a collision.

Let us look at efficiency. It depends how one defines it. In the case of air there is no heat lost during the motor function. The efficiency of the energy amount loaded at a "station" is not so bad. Of course the energy to compress air is not changed. So that the problem is what energy is considered. There is a second aspect, it is possible to load the reservoir with a small compressor during night. But pressure will not be small so that the compressor is not very low cost even if the recharging of the reservoir could cost less being done over night when electrical energy is less expensive. An advantage is the easy start-stop function to save energy, this is in city traffic an important aspect.

It is a quite complex problem of economics but it has a good impact on city pollution and with respect to an all electric car (for same application) it is less complex and requires less expensive maintenance, more the technology it fully available since the motor is also a piston type. Pressure and temperature being less than in a internal combustion engine the sealing problems and related frictions are less complex to solve.

As usual, I agree with you. It's a great solution to pollution, but will never be able to produce enough on-broad-generated compressed air to power itself.

_{Unless you put sails on it.}

To generate compressed air on bord it is only required to have a compressor AND an external power source. I doubt it would be a solution since the compressor adds weight thus increases energy needs and reduces range. The solution is to have "recharging points" in town and at home a small compressor (but it will be expensive due to a higher pressure. It has to be at least a 2 stage type).

It is IMPOSSIBLE to recharge without an external power source.

It is possible, but again cost and weight have to be added, to have a small compressor on bord and use it in active braking, the "motor" can be used as 1st stage and the small compressor as second stage. The control will be complex but it is feasible. Only a small part of the energy can be recovered so that the question is if it is economical to do it (added cost, reduced range aso).

The real fuel for this car is whatever is being used to compress the air. The air may be free, but the compression is not. Air may be convenient, but it isn't usally very efficient as a total cycle. Nor am I too keen on high-pressure air cylinders if they get damaged in a wreck. That would be rocket science.

Did you see the car that flies in the air?

This would be a good project for one of the students that keep asking for project ideas. They could debunk it.

That clip didn't have closed captioning and I couldn't read the guys lips so if this sounds like I didn't watch the clip, I did.

Sounds like a good candidate for regenerative braking or a flywheel.

Yes this has been covered. Try a search of CR4 for 'air car' or similar as we have covered this many times over the years.