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.
Their boat had two compressed air tanks piped to a ball valve which fed a single pipe poked through the transom below the water line. There was no motor/propeller as such. When the valve was opened it blew bubbles at the stern with absolutely no forward progress. They were counting on generating thrust like a rocket but the design was a laughable failure.
As to the subject automobile, it is not unique. There was a design from India (the "Ta Ta" I believe). It had some clever features, they made provisions to use the motor as a compressor to eliminate the "charging station". They used the air w/o heating it so the exhaust was cooled well below ambient and was used to air condition the interior for free. The body design was akin to the smaller Fiat as opposed to the single front "barn door" Isetta like design. I haven't heard anything about production, the project probably died before launching.
Regards,
GtG
Nahh, it was kind of an off-white. Wish she still had it.
So, how well does the heater work?
I not so clear on the heating of the air going into the engine, however.
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Gasoline vapor? If they’re needing external heat anyway why not go with STEAM... I was very workable with WHITE and Stanley (and others) ... you wouldn’t need infrastructure as you just use gasoline and water.
Thanks for educating me, and others, for a great use of a Burdon tube!
I had never seen this before. My experiences were using them in alarms.
Maybe the NFL could use some! ;^)
Sure. It’s a fascinating clock and mechanism. Strictly speaking, it’s a bellows, not a Bourdon tube. The Bourdon tube uses differential pressure to very slightly straighten out a curved tube which is translated to motion. The Atmos has used three power sources (oldest to newest):
* mercury-in-glass expansion device (temperature changes alone)
* mercury and ammonia bellows
* ethyl chloride power (current)
I think all three used a bellows.
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