No gas tank or battery
non-flammable propellant
exhaust temp of 0 - 15 degrees below zero make great air conditioner
Fill up at home overnight and make use of off-peak electricity
Good arguement for ramping up nuclear power
Made by Tata motors, India's largest car maker
200 to 300 km range (120-180mi)
Gets us off the habit of giving money
to those who want to kill us
http://www.theaircar.com/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1636348/posts
posted previously 05/22/2006
Oh yeah...
< /sarc >
If you buy into the suspension of disbelief that air compressed to 10,000 psi will be available in every shack in the country, and that the power needed to produce the compressed air is donated free by flying saucers, AND that the 50 gallon bomb does not take up all of the interior room...
Tata is a VERY large industrial giant in India -- don't diminish them one bit.
|
http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/03/19/2128249.shtml
Ongoing discussion on SlashDot
|
Would it even run in Fairbanks Alaska in -60F temps? or would it be able to heat the interior without having to haul a trailer with a small gas motor or propane heater just for the heat?
If it works it works. Great! But let's see how well it works. At first blush, it's range is less than half that of a mid-size internal combustion engine car. That said, we need to find something and this is at least a step in the right direction. The sooner we can tell the Saudis, Hugo Chavez and the rest of OPEC to pound sand, the better.
What happens when some eco freak rear ends me and ruptures the fully charged tank?
Sounds perfect for me. Retired, I do short trips mostly with a 200 mile round trip several times a month on which I am in no hurry. I'd buy one but $10 bucks says somehow it'll get buried somewhere in the grave yard. We won't hear much else about it.
Hmmmmm, on second thought wouldn't compressing air raise it's temperature eventually melting ice, then raising sea levels, stranding polar bears, flooding cities and causing the end of the world???? Now I can't sleep.
We've got to stop this project before it's too late. /sarc
You do what you want. As for me...I'm investing heavily in air.
bump for later reading
But keep in mind that a bullet going through a tank in a car would cause a lot of headaches for anyone in a couple hundred feet radius.
Using compressed air to power a motor is not a new idea. It is a relatively straightforward means of energy storage, much like flywheels or batteries. However, liquid air or liquid nitrogen is generally considered to be more capable of providing useful ranges.
From http://web.archive.org/web/20040914232840/http://www.eurekamagazine.co.uk/eureka_editorial/news_reference/FI-Nitrogen.htm
...
A car powered by liquid nitrogen may be seen cruising the streets of Bishops Stortford. Cylinder injection of a heat transfer fluid followed by liquefied gas has raised efficiency to a point where fuel costs are comparable with petrol, but, more importantly, without the pollution. As well as solving a problem which has long plagued all Rankine cycle engines, it leads to pollution-free vehicles without the associated cost and weight penalties incurred by batteries.
...
in November 2001, the team put its fingers on the breakthrough which Peter Dearman has been exploiting . His engine is two stroke. The induction stroke starts by drawing in the heat exchange fluid, which, in his case, is a conventional mix of ethylene glycol based car anti-freeze and water. Liquid nitrogen is then injected from a separate nozzle (if it was injected simultaneously, the liquid nitrogen would freeze the heat transfer fluid as it entered, blocking the injection port). The heat transfer fluid possesses sufficient heat capacity to both boil the liquid nitrogen and heat it all the way up to ambient temperature. The pressure pushes the piston down and, as it does so, it absorbs more heat from the heat transfer fluid, maintaining its temperature at ambient. At bottom dead centre, the exhaust valve opens, and the expanded nitrogen and heat transfer fluid are allowed to escape. Before reaching the atmosphere, the mixture passes through a separator to recover the heat transfer fluid which then passes through a radiator to warm it up to ambient ready for the next cycle.
...
Dearman says that it allows the car to be driven at up to 20mph and achieves a mileage of 1mile/litre. At a cost from Air Products of 10p/litre, this allows the car to achieve a similar fuel cost per mile to that achieved using petrol
...
Note that the power to weight ratio of this type of engine is much lower than any gasoline engine. Also, there are several dangers associated with the handling of cryogenic liquids.
non-flammable propellant
No, air isn’t flammable - but to run that far it would take a very high pressure air tank. Ever see one blow?
Just so they don't make a car that runs on beer. I don't want to decide between drinking and driving.
How does one go about compressing air in the first place?
Zero emissions vehicle perhaps. Zero pollution, no.