This car car runs on air!

[7horses]

The technology is here for a car that runs on air.

"BBC News is reporting that a French company has developed a pollution-free car which runs on compressed air." The cars is being produced in India.

"The air car, also known as the Mini-CAT or City Cat, can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go 200 km on a 1.5 euro fill-up -- roughly 125 miles for $3. The top speed will be almost 70 mph and the cost of the vehicle as low as $7000."

The technology is here for a car that runs on air. The U. S. should/could have taken the lead on this technology. One reason the U. S. hasn't taken the lead is that, this kind of technology is being suppressed by the big oil companies and other corporations that only look at the bottom line.

Now is the time for the U. S. to take on the corporations and take the lead in developing the technology for the 21st. century. Help nominate and elect the candidate who will/can take on the corporations and change the way things are done in this country. John Edwards is not tied up with corporate, PAC, and lobby donations. Vote John Edwards for true change!!! Donate Friday to John Edwards to help break the record for a one day donation! Go, John go!!!

[ORDagnabbit]

1. of course we wont get it here in the states...europe has some great cars we cant get

[Warpy]

2. The energy cost is powering the air compressor

and it has to be a lot beefier than the one that fills your tires.

That energy can be from renewable sources, though.

[madokie]

5. thats no problem though

as they can be built as easy as the home owner model can, just takes a little more material to do it. It sounds like it would be the ideal car for us as we drive only few miles a day and so it would be possible for us to recharge the air tank during the night hours when a lot of electrical potential is going to waste

[ladjf]

17. Wind turbines seem perfect for this job.

[Daveparts]

3. The car is a concept

It is not energy efficeint and has a limited range. You still have to power an air compressor to operate it.

[thereismore]

9. "it is not energy efficient"? Do you even know what you are talking about? nt

[Tesha]

19. Air compression is pretty inefficient, thermodynamically speaking.

Air compression is pretty inefficient, thermodynamically speaking.

The problem is that air heats up a lot as it's compressed
and unless you have something useful to do with that heat
(like store the air hot or heat your house with the waste
heat from the compressor), that heat just becomes energy
that is lost forever.

Tesha

[truedelphi]

22. Uh, gee, I dont know anyone tht needs to offgas the hot air in order

To heat their homes. <sarcasm>

In fact, when we first rented an old farm house in damp and windy Sausalito California, we pulled the clothes dryer hose up from the crawl space, dusted it off, installed a paper filter to contain the lint, and used it to heat our kitchen in the winter months.

And remember, this technology has only been mentioned a tiny little bit here in the United States. Let some of our best scieintific minds toy with this concept, and we willnot only have the compressed air car's byproducts heating our homes in the winter but maybe adding energy to something else in the summer.

The Wright Brother's first few airplanes were dismal failures, but twelve years later, planes were flying from Germany to throw bombs at the Brits.

In any new application, a new technology's constraints can be reversed. If the new technology is encouraged.

[thereismore]

31. Burning gas is much more wasteful in terms of extra heat, and THAT heat

is wasted outside. Heat generated during compression in your garage/house can be used in your water heater or elsewhere.

[IDemo]

33. Not without undoing the work of the compressor

Compressing any gas in a closed container will also increase the temperature of the gas. Cooling the gas will also result in lowering the pressure, which is not what you're after in this scenario.

[Tesha]

34. No, it's not.

> Burning gas is much more wasteful in terms of extra heat...

Surprisingly, no, it's not. All systems have some
ultimate Thermodynamic Efficiency that they can achieve
and if you look at the complete system for the compressed
air car, it achieves lousy thermodynamic efficiency when
compared to an internal combustion engine in a hybrid
automobile or a battery electric car.

The only situation where it might beat the ICE is if
the energy that compresses the air comes from a renewable
source like wind, solar, or hydro. But the battery electric
car still beats it by miles.

o http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_efficiency

o http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics

Tesha

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. My husband is studying this

He got some plans over the internet for making a compressed air motor. He says the concept is good, but not sure it would be easy to build or to convert a gasoline engine to compressed air. He does seem to think that using diving tanks made of carbon fiber would give one enough capacity to drive a vehicle for a limited range.

[madokie]

10. totally different in the connecting rod and crank arrangment from an auto engine

it would be next to impossible to convert an auto engine over to air as there is no way to allow the piston to stay at the top for an extended time while the pressure builds and that is what the knee action connecting rod does and it do compares with an electric on range IIRC

[Tesha]

16. The cam timing has to be quite different and...

The cam/valve timing has to be quite different and the intake
manifold of an ordinary auto (Otto) engine or diesel isn't
built to run under much air pressure; even in a turbocharged
car it only operates at (say) 1.6x atmospheric pressure.

But the cam/valve timing seems like the real challange for
a Do-It-Yourselfer.

A small air turbine engine might be easier to create.

Tesha

[madokie]

30. click on Animation of the articulated con-rod and take note of the way the piston

http://www.theaircar.com/howitworks.html#

remains at the top for several degrees of crankshaft rotation and in that is what makes this motor what it is, nothing to do with timing its all in the articulated connecting rod.

Articulated con-rod

The MDI con-rod system allows the piston to be held at Top Dead Centre for 70° of the cycle.




This way, enough time is given to create the pressure in the cylinder. The torque is also better so the force exerted on the crankshaft is less substantial than in a classic system.

[Richard Steele]

36. Well, that's a bit disappointing for us backyard tinkerers.

Really doesn't look like a system that any existing engine block
could be converted to. :(

Fascinating bit of engineering, though. :thumbsup:

[0007]

32. Tesha, check out this site. I'm convinced!

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

[Tesha]

35. I've seen the site. The compressed-air car is a perfect example of vaporware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware

Tesha

[karlrschneider]

37. More like "scamware"

as it were...

[Sugar Smack]

6. What's a car car? And welcome.

And:pals: :yourock: And go, John, go!

[Javaman]

12. Isn't that a bird of some sort? nt

[Sugar Smack]

14. GOD, Javaman!

Get a hobby!:* :hi: :pals:

[Javaman]

15. Sadly, DU IS my hobby....

:cry: LOL

[Jane Austin]

7. The Fart Cart?

Dogs everywhere will rejoice when people "blame it on the car". :)

[Sugar Smack]

11. shreiking.

:rofl: God, we grab our levity wherever we can, & thanks.:D :pals: :yourock:

[bdamomma]

8. European countries are way way ahead of us.

but we need our oil fix huh???

[Javaman]

13. Link? nt

[progressoid]

26. This one has been in my favorites list for a couple years

http://www.theaircar.com/

[Tesha]

18. Let's see: No heat, no A/C, recharging much more expensive than promised

Let's see: No heat, no A/C (or else how are they powered?),
recharging much more expensive than promised, difficulties
safety certifying the very-high-pressure air tank, ...

Yeah, this still sounds just like the winner it sounded
like a year or two ago when this was first posted.

Tesha

[balantz]

20. Cool! I'll take one, even if it lacks comforts.

I wonder if you are running out of air can you just blow in the tank to get you to the next station?

[JHB]

21. Every car runs on air.

Just because you don't get it at the pump doesn't mean your engine doesn't need it.


/Obviousman

[hedgehog]

23. So does this one!

[dkofos]

24. This has been around for a couple of years. Glad to see it wasn't shelved.

[NickB79]

25. This thing keeps getting kicked around every few months

Unfortunately, the last anyone heard an update about the concept was in 2004. Since then, nothing. The original prototypes only got ~20 kilometers per charge, instead of the 200 km they were aiming for. There is no current production in India; the few working prototypes were built there, but there isn't an air-car factory cranking out Mini-CAT's on a daily basis. Then you have to look at the inefficiency of compressing air to charge the car. It is incredibly energy-wasteful to compress air (anyone who doesn't believe me, google "Boyle's Law").

Look at it like this: you generate electricity, charge batteries in an electric car with little energy loss due to heating, and you drive it. With a compressed-air car, you generate electricity, compress air with a large amount of energy loss due to heating, transfer that air into an air-car, with more loss of energy, and then drive it. Every time you transfer energy, you lose some of it. Air cars seem to add an unneeded step into the process.

[Yukari Yakumo]

27. Pass

This car is far more dangerous than the normal car. Imagine if that compressed air tank got damaged in an accident? That would be like a bomb going off. As opposed to gas cars, which might catch fire, but that's it. (Cars don't blow up like they do in Hollywood.)

Plus its limited range and speed might work in urban area, but in areas like Alaska and Wyoming where the next major city is over 125 miles away, the thing is going to go over like a lead brick.

And there's the question of horsepower or how well it can go up inclines. Does it crap out on a 30 deg. hill? Does it run with an extra 200 lb.s of extra weight?

[Javaman]

28. there was a story a few years ago about a plant filled tanks with

compressed gas that exploded. The some of the nozzles melted off the tanks and they took off like rockets.

could be a bit dicey in a car wreck but hell you would make it home in nothing flat! LOL

[7horses]

29. Sorry ...

I stuttered on the word c-c-c-car car! haha