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Compressed-Air Car Nears Trial
DeviceGuru writes "Air France and KLM have announced plans to conduct a six-month trial of a new zero-emission, compressed-air powered vehicle. The AirPod seats three, can do 28 mph, and goes about 135 miles on a tank of compressed air. Motor Development International, the vehicle's developer, expects the AirPod to reach production by mid-2009, and to sell for around 6,000 Euro. Initially, it will be manufactured in India by Tata Motors, and distributed in France and India."
28 MPH is not fast enough for realistic street travel.
The concept is not entirely worthless though. If you apply the power train to a bicycle frame you have a very powerful upgrade to a standard bicycle, and with the even higher power to weight ratio you have a considerable speed upgrade as well.
I predict this will flop pretty badly because of this speed limitation, and if it starts to take off people will have them banned as "moving road blocks".
I, for one, would not tolerate an urban landscape clogged by a bunch of people who can't go faster than my grandmother. I hope they also come standard with the requisite continuously running directional indicator for those speeds.
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I don't know about the US, but most European cities have speed limits of 50 km/h (around 31 mph), so it's not that far of.
Actually, I would not mind this type of car getting popular, since it would lower the air and noise pollution in crammed cities quite considerably.
Zero-emissions, true, but I'd watch the videos before claiming this would lower noise pollution. It seemed sort of loud, at least in the video I watched.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Tag as vaporware. MDI have been peddling this for over a decade with no results; its always nearing trials.
It's a heat engine, no more efficient than a petrol powered engine, but with the problem of low density energy storage. Basically it doesn't look good compared to batteries and electric drive.
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Seriously though, about the 28mph : this is marketed as a city car. Most of the time, in cities, you'd be happy to be driving at that speed. In most bigger cities, the circulation is stop and go for the better part of the day, along with some awfull air polution. Only airpowered car would be a blessing .. I guess there is a reason why India is so interested in this technology.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
28MPH when the car is fully charged, I assume? How about when the tank is 1/2 full? Does it have a heater for the winter?
A novel idea, but if we're going to make people movers, electric sounds like a more realistic implementation. An electric go-kart isn't that hard to mass produce.
Also, I'm wondering if these guys have mane any progress, lately.
It is not intended to replace your SUV or run cross-country.
It is intended to allow a maximum of 3 people get from A to B where the distance is relatively short. Like home to the super market. You don't need an SUV to do that.
It is not intended to replace a sports car.
Most urban areas have 50km/h speed limits, and in often cases even that is unreachable due to congestion.
It is not intended to be an ultra efficient machine.
The use of compressed air means that in the end, the energy efficiency will be just about the same as a gasoline/petrol engine. But that's not the point. It has zero emissions, and most compressors run off of electricity. That means lower smog in heavily populated urban areas. (Ever been to large Indian cities?) In addition, air compressors are easy and relatively cheap infrastructure to introduce in most areas. Of course, plug-in hybrids are too, but you can't get a plug-in hybrid for 6,000 Euros.
If this car does not fit your needs, then its not intended for you. One size does not fit all.
A company called MDI already has compressed air cars on the streets of Mexico city. Here is a youtube video with some interviews with them. They actually make several cars and can get over 60mph and 200mph per fillup. Fillup takes 3 minutes with pre-compressed air or 4 hours off a home compressor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztFDqcu8oJ4
Note, disregard the commentators crackpot statement about perpetual motion at the end. The company isn't making that claim.
You also have pollution where the electricity is produced but that is true of all the alternatives being suggested today. It is far more efficient and economical to produce clean energy on a large scale at a power plant than it is at the vehicle level.
For that matter, with current scrubber technology even coal power is actually pretty clean. It's not renewable and isn't a solution but in the meantime its cleaner than burning gas on a car by car basis. It's certainly cleaner than creation and disposal rechargeable batteries.
28 MPH is not fast enough for realistic street travel. [...] I, for one, would not tolerate an urban landscape clogged by a bunch of people who can't go faster than my grandmother.
Check out French "car" maker Ligier. They, and others, have been producing similar vehicles for several years. Just diesel-powered, and less silly-looking. They are classified as mopeds, and are therefore not allowed to go faster than 45km/h (28mph). (Some models are classified as 4-wheel motorcycles and can go faster).
Not being classified as a "car" means they don't have to pass crash tests, so it's probably a good thing they don't go faster.
Apparently you've never enjoyed realistic street travel in a crowded major city such as midtown New York or central London, where 28 mph would be pretty optimistic and, on some streets, illegal.
The AirPod looks oddly like the auto-rickshaws used in Delhi, or the tuk-tuk of Bangkok. These devices generally are powered by internal-combustion engines that burn CNG (compressed natural gas).
They're plenty fast enough for high-density urban surface street travel, and in India I've seen as many as 10 people crammed into one, traveling on rural highways.
I'm puzzled by the KLM-Air France connection, although I suppose these would make fine runabouts for airport workers. Sort of like golf carts.
On another note ...
Most of the comments I'm reading here completely miss the point of the compressed air, which is not a carbon-neutral fuel source but essentially just the equivalent of a wind-up spring. That lets the vehicle be powered by any energy source, depending on how the air is compressed. You get to carbon-neutral by using some non-petroleum power to compress the air, such as nuclear-generated electrical energy.
Electric cars work the same way, but I have to wonder about the environmental impact of disposal of the batteries, which do wear out.
In the United States, many states and municipalities have already approved low-speed electrics for local commuting. They are generally limited to 25mph (which I consider to be an asinine limitation), and have short range like 30 miles or so. Of course you can't take them on highways or other high-speed streets.
I, too, argue that this is not very practical... but it is apparently pracical enough for many people to have bought them.
I dunno about you, but in the first video I heard a very definite "jackhammer" sound. Not only that, the engineer was obviously defensive when asked about noise. "no, really, it's not loud, it only seems that way; it's different! People just need to learn to get used to it."
Yeah, it's got a noise problem.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
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In the 1890s, high-pressure steam, electricity and compressed air weren't available outside the biggest cities, at any price.
In 2008, it is still hard to see how you make the "alternative fuel" available, attractive and affordable outside the urban core.
The New York Times posted a story on the revival of the Erie Barge Canal:
The canal still remains the most fuel-efficient way to ship goods between the East Coast and the upper Midwest. One gallon of diesel pulls one ton of cargo 59 miles by truck, 202 miles by train and 514 miles by canal barge. A single barge can carry 3,000 tons, enough to replace 100 trucks. Hints of Comeback for Nation's First Superhighway