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Car Powered by Compressed Air
gripperzipper writes "CNN reports that a Korean company created a small car powered by compressed air. ENERGINE created its PHEV, or Pneumatic-Hybrid Electric Vehicle, which uses a two-stroke compressed air engine for start, acceleration, and uphill climbs. The car switches to an electric motor when its speed reaches 20-25 km/h (32-40 mi/h). Although major auto manufacturers have invested heavily in gasoline hybrids, it will be interesting to see if a market will open for this type of vehicle." Update: 04/04 17:18 GMT by T : Reader Tapsu spotted the incongruity here, writing "Interesting post, but the speed conversion has gone wrong way: "20-25 km/h
(32-40 mi/h)". ... Thus the correct speed range in miles would be
something like 12-15 mi/h."
But does it take more electricity to compress the air into the tank than it does to just run the car on electric power? Sounds like just another degree of separation from energy we'll be getting from oil, anyway.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
The car swtiches to electric when it reaches 25 km/hr according to the Energine website which is actually more like 15 miles per hour.
First off, like someone said, that the energy it takes to compress the air can be inefficient and still polute the air if the energy to compress came from fossil fuels/coal. Secondly, while it is an "Engineering Marvel" to drive up a hill using compressed air, it's very dangerous. For any of you who have ever worked on high pressure AC systems, any pressure higher than 500psi or so can be deadly if anything at all goes wrong. It's not like a battery, where a little acid can spill if it's broken. Nor is it like gasoline, cars are built to prevent explosions, and the worst case scenario is lots of fire. If you puncture a high pressure tank or lines, you have a disaster on your hands; theres no avoiding it. Besides, the entire problem with a gas induction engine is that they are horribly inefficient anyways unless they are running at their optimal RPM.
The line should read:
The car switches to an electric motor when its speed reaches 20-25 mi/h (32-40 km/h).
A completely compressed air vehicle has been made before and is a production model called the air car by a company MDI in italy. They have produced models for street use, you can see a video of it here.
...and it should be known by now
Well, it only uses compressed air for accelerating and climbing up hills. So it does make sense to use air: short burst of acceleration on air (much power), steady driving on battery (lower power)
Yeah -- I've been watching this guy for a couple years, and have come to the conclusion that he's a complete con-artist.
If you read the website carefully, you'll note that the specifications he displays here http://www.theaircar.com/models.html for the various models (range, top speed, refuel rates, etc) are all based on theoretical measurements made by guessing how much improvement he can get from changing a number of things in his current design. The current design has been tested for a total of 7.2 km. He gets his 200-300km range by extrapolating based on his guesses. See http://www.theaircar.com/tests.html (scroll down to "Mileage comparison between the taxi in development and the final car") for the true specifications, and note that after the top row, they're all extrapolations. He's basically saying he should get x% increase from this change, and y% from that change, and that means the "improved" engine will get (x+y)% better performance.
His site hasn't changed in at least a year -- meaning those figures haven't been updates with actual test results, and I don't think they ever will be. It's real easy to guess how much improvement various changes may make. It's not so easy to get that improvement out of them.
Next, note that he's selling "licenses" to build factories to produce the car. This is his real goal: Grab some $$ from investors before they find out he has no real product. He's a lot like the guys selling free energy based on concepts that violate the laws of thermodynamics, but will have a working model "real soon now".
Go ahead and watch this guy -- it's entertainment at least, -- but don't give him any of your money until he can back up his specifications with real world tests.
Help find a cure for Gidget.
True conservatives? Is that like the true christians? Looks like to me appealing to the idealized form while ignoring the reality of what these beliefs have done historically (remember true conservatives also defended segregation,etc) is nothing more than a way to fight cognitive dissonance.