"...from my cold dead hands."
Posted on 05/08/2015 8:05:39 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
LOS ANGELES, California, May 4, 2015 (ENS) – AIRPod, a $10,000 car that runs on compressed air, has won a development deal on the American TV program “Shark Tank.”
Robert Herjavec, one of the investors, or sharks, Friday night agreed to invest US$5 million in Zero Pollution Motors, the U.S. licensee for Luxembourg-based MDI, developer of the Air Car as a compression-based alternative to the internal combustion engine.
In return Herjavec, a Croatian-born Canadian businessman, investor and auto racing enthusiast, will acquire 50 percent equity in Zero Pollution Motors.
Pat Boone, the famous music star from the 1950s, joined Ethan Tucker of Brattleboro, Vermont, who owns the Zero Pollution Motors rights to manufacture and sell the AIRPod in Hawaii, to pitch the new eco-friendly compressed air car to the sharks.
The AIRPod will be built in regional turnkey micro production factories throughout the United States.
Unlike the huge traditional auto assembly plants, these plants will manufacture 80 percent of the vehicles and will sell them in the same location.
This method will decrease costs and logistic problems and also has a significant beneficial impact on the environment, Tucker and Boone explained to the sharks.
Hawaii is the anticipated location of the first production plant.
Tucker told the sharks the islands are an ideal location for an AIRPod factory because it is a contained location, is overloaded with vehicles, suffers from air pollution and is dependent on weekly shipments of petrol.
Herjavec agreed to put up the $5 million, but only if ZPM is able to get the rights to manufacture and sell the AIRPod in the entire United States.
The AIRPod vehicle was developed by French inventor and environmentalist Guy Negre. The vehicle design is owned by MDI Sa based in Luxembourg.
To power the vehicle, cold air compressed in tanks to 300 times atmospheric pressure is heated and fed into the cylinders of a piston engine.
No combustion occurs, so there is no air pollution. Negre has said that the air emitted from the tailpipe is cleaner than the air that goes in, due to an internal filter.
The AIRPod can be refilled from a compressed air station, similar to those that exist today at gas stations for the inflation of tires but with larger capacity and higher pressure.
The AIRPod can be refilled with air at home using an electric compressor and Negre hopes that, one day, drivers will be able to recharge the cars in filling stations in three minutes for as little as three dollars.
Zero Pollution Motors intends to produce the first compressed air car for sale in the United States by the second half of 2015.
“It makes little sense to try rewriting thermodynamic law to invent new methods of propulsion in the name of ‘pollution’.”
Norm, I don’t think the laws of thermodynamics are a problem. However there are other problems that I can see. Not the least of which is the relative inefficiency involved in compressing air.
Air tends to heat up when you compress it. That low level heat represents a significant loss of energy. Pneumatic tools are a good example. It can take a 5HP compressor to run a 1HP die grinder continuously...
At least with a steam engine you get to recycle much of the heat with a counter flow heat exchanger. I don’t see how you could do that with a comressor.
Boone and friends may have the last laugh.
Thousands have been sold in India by the licensee, TaTa motors.
Its license there is owned there by a big British auto company whose stock sells in the mid $40.00 range on the NYSE. They sell 17 models of air cars there from sedans, to SUVs, to vans.
They are when you consider the fact that someone has to somehow compress the air, store it, transfer it, provide the . All that adds up. Equipment for storing it and the rest also have to factor in, their manufacture, raw materials etc. The inefficiency is off the charts, the energy taken from traditional sources still emits pollution and there is no way to square all that with TD and call it a net gain over traditional gas/diesel..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RBl1LFUQ4c
I believe it could be developed. Makes more sense than electric.
If they could build bigger compressors and bigger cars, they could really get more attention.
Hey don't leave out GM, those Corvair Ramp Sides were pretty handy.
I confess my shame. Ii did not know that existed!
"...from my cold dead hands."
Hey if my brother in law wasn’t a Corvair guy neither would I, but then I have my own orphan car proclivities with Studebaker.
“The inefficiency is off the charts, the energy taken from traditional sources still emits pollution and there is no way to square all that with TD and call it a net gain over traditional gas/diesel..”
I agree with that of course. It’s a net loss... A big one. Like I said, a steam engine makes more sense.
Makes sense as part of a hybrid system, not so sure for the sole power source. Compressed air tank big enough to get anywhere would make quite a satisfactory bomb if breeched.
4400 psi is just a bomb waiting to go off heh.
There are thousands of ‘Steampunks” that would kill for real steam powered cars. Personally I’m more a “Dieselpunk” type of guy.
Interesting stuff actually!
“Makes more sense than electric.”
I would say it makes much less sense, but electrics aren’t viable either.
A buddy of mine had a studebaker in the pre internet days he wanted to restore. You can imagine how well that went. Couldn’t find ANTYHING for that project. He sold it to a guy that has a couple like it with his own dreams of a complete car someday.
Actually parts, both new and old stock are readily available from vendors nationwide. I had to sell my Avanti powered 1963 GT Hawk last year because I couldn’t physically work on it anymore and I wanted it to live on not be crushed. There is a big annual meet every Memorial Day weekend near me in Anaheim,CA.
Good point.
How about an eco-friendly MISSILE powered by air-pressure?
Yea but this was 1983ish in upstate NY and the aftermarket was a mostly Ford/Chevy/Mopar proposition ;) Anything within 2000 nautical miles had rusted long before.
It wasn’t an Avanti. I cant remember the model or year but it sorta/kinda looked like a 40s Ford sedan.
As an Internation Harvester Light Line fan, I feel your pain < BG>
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