PAT BOONE (Yes, THAT PAT BOONE ) PITCHES ECO-FRIENDLY CAR ON SHARK TANK WITH PARTNER ETHAN TUCKER
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.
Most all the sharks saw the vision but many were discouraged by the fact Boone and Tucker only had a license to sell in Hawaii.
And that’s why Herjavec’s deal is contingent upon the company securing the entire U.S. rights. Hawaii makes sense as a place to start; the pollution is high and the dependance on gasoline being shipped to the islands is great. And while AIRPod could be a big hit there, to get it running, Herjavec will require Boone and Tucker to move swifter than they perhaps intended. In this industry, though, if you don’t swim fast, the sharks will almost certainly catch you.
And how is all that air gonna get itself compressed? Hand pumps?
That thing's got death-trap written all over it.
Ya think?
Since we now have had air scrubber cars for over a decade, It makes little sense to try rewriting thermodynamic law to invent new methods of propulsion in the name of ‘pollution’. But I guess it gets green investor ‘green’. and capitalistic profit for socialists.
Seating for 3?
Range?
I won’t ask the speed or towing capacity.
At the very least it has double amputee written all over it, I wonder if they also own shares in prosthetic manufacturers.
So, how is the power to run the high pressure air compressor generated in Hawaii? If primarily nuclear, these cars would really be “zero emission”, but methinks that most power there is either coal or oil based, and the losses in transmission and conversion will make this no less than an equivalent pollution source.
Mythbusters tried to do this with a boat this will fail as well
Yup. There was a reason cabover designs went the way of the Dodo. Even vans today have some nose to them. The old Ford/Dodge/VW pick-up/vans looked cool in a retro way though.
Simple...spontaneous compression, a little researched phenomena that convinces those O2 and N2 molecules to race into the tank all by themselves and self-assemble into a highly compressed mass.
I not so clear on the heating of the air going into the engine, however.
Compressed air cars really suck at high temperature. You waste too much energy compressing the air. Better they shouldmtry Alaska.
I’ve been riding Motorcycles for 38 years....and I would never drive something like that....way too dangerous.
Air compressed to 300 times atmospheric pressure - that’s over 4400 psi. Interestingly the same pressure advertised for paintball gun canisters, so probably looking at similar equipment to compress the air. Wouldn’t want to be near one when some part of the system fails.
Compressing air is highly inefficient. When a gas is compressed heat is created, heat=energy, waste heat must be removed, heated air carries more moisture, moisture removal requires more energy. My prediction, fail.
Not really because there is still nuclear waste and the associated nuke plant emissions to consider.
Of course!!! Wasn’t that developed from the rotating bird killer tech? Wait I meant the sub-nuclear bird fryers.
Maybe the dead birds from other environ-mental-ly responsible power generation schemes are loaded into a vat and the outgassing of the decomposition process is the way of the future...and stuff! ;)
Take that trip to the store and supply your own your own coffin. How great is that?
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