Air powered Car [merged threads]

[grapesoda]

i guess the admins or mods can delete the crappy thread i created the other day.
http://tsikot.yehey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51577


this car still uses electricity. and electricity still comes from fossil fuel from big nuclear/coal powerplants. solar panels aren't that popular here anyway. the only wind turbines available in the country were in ilocos norte, if i'm not mistaken.

and my solar charger only charges my phone/mp3 player/camera and it doubles as a torch. i don't think it's enough for the aircar.

but i think at this time, people would kill for a car that need not have to visit the gas station.

still not out in the US.

[jpdm]

Manila Standard
July 24, 2008

Air car from India

By Antonio C. Abaya

Car manufacturers who have been working on hydrogen-fuel-cell cars—Honda, BMW and Daimler—have promised that their models would be in mass production mode in three years.
Honda’s entry, the FCX Clarity, was announced recently, but only 200 units have been fabricated, and all 200 will be shipped to Southern California, there to be rented out, not sold, at $600 a month each.

If Honda et al. do not watch out, their expensive FC cars could be overtaken— in price, availability and global acceptability—by an Air Car from India.
My only reader in Kazakhstan, Javier Ailes, a Filipino engineer working for an Italian firm there, sent the following e-mail:

“Mr. Abaya: As a late reaction to your column on The Hydrogen Future, I am sending you herewith a forwarded e-mail regarding Air Car technology from Indian carmaker Tata. Something to ponder about...”

I have similar literature about this Air Car, but there is a paucity of information about its technical aspects. Perhaps it is all hush-hush to protect pending patents application. But this much we know.

The Air Car was developed by a French engineer, Guy Negre, for a family owned company, MDI, in Carros in Southern France.

It runs on compressed air. According to Popular Mechanics in its June 2007 issue, “Barring any last minute design changes on the way to production, the Air Car should be surprisingly practical. 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 four hours.”

It sounds too good to be true. Is anyone buying? According to the BBC News of Feb. 13, 2008, another Air Car model, the OneCAT, has been licensed to the Indian industrial conglomerate, Tata Motors, which may use the same technology to fabricate its line of electric generators.

The OneCAT model weighs just 350 kg and could cost just over 2,500 British pounds, or about $5,000. “For long journeys, the compressed air driving the pistons can be boosted by a fuel burner which heats the air so it expands and increases the pressure on the pistons. The burner will use all kinds of liquid fuel. The designers say that on long journeys the car will do the equivalent of 120 mpg. In town, running on air, it will be cheaper than that.”

According to Popular Mechanics, “some 6,000 zero-emission Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008.” Hey, that’s next week already.

“Of course, the Air Car will likely never hit American shores, especially considering its all-glue construction. But that doesn’t mean the major automakers can write it off as a bizarre Indian (actually, French) experiment. MDI has signed deals to bring its design to 12 more countries, including Germany, Israel and South Africa.”

The inventor, Guy Negre, wants his licensees to fabricate the car from 80 percent locally sourced materials. And he wants each local factory to sell its own cars directly, to cut out the middleman, and he aims for one percent of global sales, or about 680,000 units per year.
Terri Spall from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers said he was interested to see how the car would fare with safety tests and how much it would appeal to a public conditioned to expect luxury fittings which add to the weight of the vehicle.
Mr. Negre says there is no issue with safety. If the Air Car crashes, tanks won’t shatter. They will split with a very loud bang. “The biggest risk is to the ears.”

At $5,000 or about P230,000 each, the OneCAT will likely be competing with the gasoline-powered Cherry car from China , and the Nano, which is also gasoline-powered and which will soon be also produced by Tata Motors.

But since it does not burn fossil fuel and does not cost an arm and a leg, the OneCAT would be the clear winner as the Car of the Future, all things being equal.

The recent energy summit of the Arroyo administration did not mention the Air Car as an alternative to fossil-fueled motor vehicles, just as it did not mention hydrogen fuel-cells or two-wheelers. It has to be the private sector that has to explore these possibilities since the bureaucracy cannot think outside the box.

All reactions to tonyabaya*gmail.com. Other articles and reactions in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com

Galing naman nito.

Pinoy, gayahin natin ito.

[niky]

RE: GMA's speech. She didn't mention hydrogen vehicles because, obviously, they're not a "people's car" type of thing. Hydrogen-run vehicles are still too expensive, and the infrastructure to run them even more so.

Two wheelers? No need to mention. With the huge number of two-wheelers on the streets already, I'm sure the Filipino people are well aware of that alternative.

The Air Car is interesting because I can see the "re-fueling" infrastructure for this as being not-so-expensive to set up.

[ghosthunter]

The Air Car is interesting because I can see the "re-fueling" infrastructure for this as being not-so-expensive to set up.

An Aircar doesn't even need "refueling infrastructure". All it needs would be an electrical socket to plug-in a special high pressure air compressor which it can carry on-board the vehicle.

[psyche]

I'm looking forward to this as well as water-fueled cars.

Conducive to nature.

What are the downsides btw?

[ghosthunter]

I'm looking forward to this as well as water-fueled cars.

Conducive to nature.

What are the downsides btw?

Well, if you feel comfortable sitting on top of a potential bomb consisting of compressed air tanks holding 5,000 psi compressed air which if ruptured has the explosive force of a car bomb, no major downsides.

Oh yeah, current design has a low top speed and the system only runs the "air-engine". No options for air-conditioning and power steering yet.

[niky]

Besides that... your running costs are still dependent upon the cost of electricity to run the compressor... electricity which comes mostly from coal-fired powerplants. You may not be polluting directly and not as much as a person with a gasoline car, but it's still there.

[ghosthunter]

Besides that... your running costs are still dependent upon the cost of electricity to run the compressor... electricity which comes mostly from coal-fired powerplants. You may not be polluting directly and not as much as a person with a gasoline car, but it's still there.

Counter argument there... it is easier to clean up a single powerplant's dirty exhaust than half a million individually maintained vehicles on the road.

[donbuggy]

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_car

[SIZE=3]Advantages[/SIZE]

The principal advantages of an air powered vehicle are:

• Refueling can be done at home using an air compressor or at service stations. The energy required for compressing air is produced at large centralized plants, making it less costly and more effective to manage carbon emissions than from individual vehicles.
• Reduced vehicle weight is the principle efficiency factor of compressed-air cars. Furthermore, they are mechanically more rudimentary than traditional vehicles as many conventional parts of the engine may be omitted. Some plans include motors built into the hubs of each wheel, thereby removing the necessity of a transmission, drive axles and differentials. A four passenger vehicle weighing less than 800 lbs. is a reasonable design goal.
• One manufacturer promises a range of 200 kilometers by the end of the year at a cost of € 1.50 per fill-up.
• Compressed air engines reduce the cost of vehicle production by about 20%, because there is no need to build a cooling system, spark plugs, transmission, axles, starter motor, or mufflers.
• Most compressed air engines do not need a transmission, only a flow control.
• The rate of self-discharge is very low opposed to batteries that deplete their charge slowly over time. Therefore, the vehicle may be left unused for longer periods of time than electric cars.
• Lower initial cost than battery electric vehicles when mass produced. One estimate is €3,000 less.
• Compressed air is not subject to fuel tax.
• Expansion of the compressed air lowers in temperature; this may be exploited for use as air conditioning.
• Compressed-air vehicles emit no pollutants.
• Air turbines, closely related to steam turbines, is a technology over 50 years old. It is simple to achieve with low tech materials. This would mean that developing countries, and rapidly growing countries like China and India, could easily implement a less polluting means of personal transportation than an internal combustion engine automobile.
• Possibility to refill air tank at home (using domestic power socket).
• Lighter vehicles would result in less wear on roads.
• The price of fueling air powered vehicles may be significantly cheaper than current fuels. Some estimates project only $3.00 for the cost of electricity for filling a tank.

[SIZE=3]Disadvantages[/SIZE]

Just like the modern car and most household appliances, the principle disadvantage is that of indirect energy use. Energy is used to compress air, which - in turn - provides the energy to run the motor. Any indirect step in energy usage results in loss. For conventional combustion motor cars, the energy is lost when oil is converted to usable fuel - including drilling, refinement, labor and storage. For compressed-air cars, energy is lost when electrical energy is converted to compressed air.

Further disadvantages:

• According to thermodynamics, when air is expanded in the engine, it cools via adiabatic cooling and thereby loses pressure, reducing the amount of power passed the engine at lower temperatures. Furthermore, it is difficult to maintain or restore the temperature of the compressed or compressing air using a heat exchanger due to the high rate of flow. The ideal isothermic energy capacity of the tank will therefore not be realized. Low temperatures may also encourage the engine to ice up.
• Refueling the compressed air container using a home or low-end conventional air compressor may take as long as 4 hours. Service stations may have specialized equipment that may take only 3 minutes.
• Early tests have demonstrated the limited storage capacity of the tanks; the only published test of a vehicle running on compressed air alone was limited to a range of 7.22 km.

A 2005 study demonstrated that cars running on lithium-ion batteries out-perform both compressed air and fuel cell vehicles more than three-fold at same speeds. MDI has recently claimed that an air car will be able to travel 140km in urban driving , and have a range of 80 km with a top speed of 110km/h on highways, when operating on compressed air alone.

[niky]

Counter argument there... it is easier to clean up a single powerplant's dirty exhaust than half a million individually maintained vehicles on the road.

True enough. Which is why I think electrics might become a viable choice when the technology for batteries advance far enough.

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RE: compressed air range... it remains to be seen. Obviously, we'll find out when the first cars hit the streets.