Compressed Air Powerd Car To Be Sold In US

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

Umm... yeah. A French company has developed a way to power a car on air. It is being developed jointly with India's Tata Motors where it will first be sold later this year. Even more interesting is that it will be sold in the US around 2010. It gets 125 miles per fill up and costs around $2 to fill. Here's the US manufacturer's website if you are interested: http://zeropollutionmotors.us/

If you think about it, it's better than batteries from a weight standpoint. You could build a combustion (Internal or turbine) engine/ air hybrid and save a lot of weight as compared to a engine/ generator/battery hybrid.

 

[85Supreme403]

its freakin ugly as hell though lol

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

its freakin ugly as hell though lol

I'll give you that, but I spend $15-$20 a day on gas right now for a 4 cylinder pickup. Fuel demand is going up globally and the technology is an interesting possible solution. To me, it kind of looks like one of the European "bubble cars" of the 1950's- like the Iso/BMW Isetta or maybe the Fiat 600. I'd rock it if it were cheap enough. A paper bag for my head is still cheaper than gas prices...lol Besides, it'd be a commuter car and allow me to use the savings to pollute more with my V8 G body. :wink:

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

The other thing to think about is that more of the world's population than ever has access to cars while Oil supplies are not increasing at a rate commensurate with demand. With China and India finally industrializing under stable, semi-capitalist governments, this opens the world's two largest nations by population to becoming first world nations. If other nations follow suit (Former USSR, Africa, South America), there will be even less to go around. We need to solve this problem before it stalls the world's economies.

I do not believe in Global Warming, but I do understand the economies of scale that are developing. Those things are what scares me about the future. They also cause me to want to investigate new technologies with the potential to reduce the demand for limited resources and supplement them with efficient ways of producing energy out of renewable sources at a reduced cost. I hold out the biggest hope for the new solar technologies (like thin film solar cells that do not use a silicon substrate--ie CIGS) that are coming to market now. Reducing the need for large energy infrastructure investment holds much promise for the developing world, and the developed world. Much like many countries have gone straight to cell phone service without ever having home phones, it may well be that inexpensive clean technologies will allow similar things to happen in the developing world.

 

[Sprottrod]

I saw some coverage about this on TV the other day. They said that the cheapest would be around $7000 and are supposed to operate at over 4000 PSI. They said top speed was 70, and have carbon fiber air tanks mounted under the passenger compartment. So when you get t-boned the tanks dont blow up or take off flying. They are supposed to withstand small arms fire and if they do break they are supposed to crack, safely releasing the pressure. Included in the buying price they supply an at home air compressor to refill with. It is supposed to take 3 hours to refill at home and 3 minutes at a refill station. So realisticly if you were to use some other source of electricity, solar/wind to power the compressor then it would be virtually pollution free, aside from verything it took to manufacture the vehicle. lol. Ugly or not if it were to sell for $7000 then come on with it. I'd take one.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

I mean, if the technology works as well as it is being presented, it will be a hit based on a pure cost-benefit basis. The thing will be, how will road usage taxes then be collected? Currently, it is done via a series of taxes that around where I live are around 30-40 cents a gallon. Now you run into a similar problem if you brew your own bio-diesel with either a pure veggie oil car (Mercedes W123 Chassis cars are the most popular) or a bio-diesel from fry oil conversion kit. You are still required to pay the tax and can get in trouble if you do not.

As for it being ugly, I agree. It is a homely little crate. However, if the technology were to take off, it could be used in vehicles of different shapes and sizes, not just what is pictured.

You just have to deconstruct the way a car works in your head a little to see why this is so interesting. All cars store energy somehow in order to release it in a controlled manner and propel the car. Gas and Diesel store it as a liquid, electric in batteries and these things as air pressure. Now the two that are the most flexible as to how they get their energy are the electric and air. Their charge can be made by a flexible outside means of manufacture via an electrically powered appliance which itself is powered by a variety of means. So, you can have a de-facto solar, wind, etc. powered car by using a stationary storage device that could store energy during peak hours and then transfer it to the car when it is not in use. The car then need not actually possess any of these technologies as a part of it's unit, but rather it would have them as a part of it's total system.

 

[jatguit]

WOW, Yes this thing has some real possibilities.

Maybe road use taxes could be attached to your excise taxes and possibly refined further directly relating to a yearly mileage report of some sort. Not sure if that could work as it doesn't spread the cost out as far as actual driving useage area.

Interesting the sight says:
"Refueling: The Air Car can be refilled with Air at home or in your parking garage by plugging it into a normal power outlet. (and more importantly)The compressed Air tank is also automatically refilling when driving at higher speeds."

And, it is only the need for some fuel needed at higher speeds, If they could figure out how to transfer from an onboard energy source ,like Hybrids, then this thing could have unlimited mileage.

The wife is definately gonna want one of these.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

As for onboard charging, look into a company called Nanosolar. They are pioneering thin film solar cells that are basically sprayed like a paint onto a metal substrate. If you could paint the outside of the car with this, you could have the car charge itself slowly while in the sun, weather it is moving or not. They are also cheap to make as they do not use silicon chips. This would not be a total solution to run the car long range, but it could make it so that it could be used completely off grid as a short range commuter car. It is really an interesting time to live when we are probably going to decide which energy standards will be used for a long time to come. I think it is almost like the early 1900's when nothing was considered conventional yet, and the whole infrastructure had yet to be defined. I want us to decrease our use of oil for electricity and mobility because I believe we need to stop paying our enemies to screw us. If we can stop needing imported oil, we can effectively kill the economies of Middle Eastern and South American dictatorships sworn to destroy us. I know that if I could have solar electricity for less money than I pay to be on the grid, I would be off the grid yesterday. I have many more thoughts on this, but I will stop here in the name of brevity.

 

[jatguit]

As for onboard charging, look into a company called Nanosolar. They are pioneering thin film solar cells that are basically sprayed like a paint onto a metal substrate. If you could paint the outside of the car with this, you could have the car charge itself slowly while in the sun, weather it is moving or not. They are also cheap to make as they do not use silicon chips. This would not be a total solution to run the car long range, but it could make it so that it could be used completely off grid as a short range commuter car. It is really an interesting time to live when we are probably going to decide which energy standards will be used for a long time to come. I think it is almost like the early 1900's when nothing was considered conventional yet, and the whole infrastructure had yet to be defined. I want us to decrease our use of oil for electricity and mobility because I believe we need to stop paying our enemies to screw us. If we can stop needing imported oil, we can effectively kill the economies of Middle Eastern and South American dictatorships sworn to destroy us. I know that if I could have solar electricity for less money than I pay to be on the grid, I would be off the grid yesterday. I have many more thoughts on this, but I will stop here in the name of brevity.

Yes, we looked into the thin film solar for our house. We were in the process of needing a new roof and we did go with an aluminum interlock system that is energy star rated (absorbs less than the conventional tar tile roofs, in effect a cooler roof). And also hurricane rated and has a 50 year life span. But we can't use thin film with this style we went with.

Unfortunately it is still in its infancy and is a few years from perfecting. And also you need a standing seem roof for it to work (we were told by a person in the industry who has worked with it and knows a lot about it). Well a standing seem roof was fairly expensive and then the install so the price still isn't worth it long term. AND we are not planning on living in this house in 10 years BUT will continue to own it as rental property. So we did want a roof that was rated to last hopefully as long as we could be living.

The more i thought about this car the more i realized that you are still tied to some energy source, much like an electric car (and if you can charge up completely with some sustainable energy source the better). But if it is further refinable, then I believe there are some great possibilities.

 

[85 Cutlass Brougham]

The thing I see is the near future potential of thin film solar. I can see it really solving a lot of energy needs even if it is not used in automotive applications. It could offset some of the oil consumption used by power plants and free up that oil for use in gasoline. I also think that when the price comes down enough that it will be available on a leasing plan where the utility installs it and then leases it back to the owner on a month by month basis. Then, the one time install charge is eliminated and you get back to a basic utility bill. This way the utilities do not need to buy and dedicate more land specifically for solar installations and can instead use normally unused space for their solar cells. There is already a company in Florida with a similar financing system, but it is too expensive to be considered a viable alternative that the general public would actually use. We are on the verge of the tipping point where solar will become the power source of the future as it does not need to get much cheaper.

When a good solution is out there, Capitalism will usually find a way of making it available. Most of the major oil companies are now invested in some kind of solar technology, with BP and Shell coming immediately to mind. I think anyone with a brain can see that the current system is not in the best interest of us all as it destabilizes the economy too much. Too much power is given to unstable dictators in otherwise useless countries (Venezuela, Iran, etc) by oil. OPEC is our enemy and we need to divest ourselves of it's grasp.

I do not believe all is lost as some doomsayers seem to, and instead I tend to believe the whole energy landscape is about to realign itself towards more stable means of local production. This will also allow for the explosive growth of developing countries as well since it will eliminate the need for expensive power plants and allow small towns and villages to build an inexpensive solar power grid to serve their needs. Add to that some other infrastructure possibilities like cell phones or satellite phones and you will be able to work almost anywhere in the world and still be connected.