Berkeley Engineers Have Some Bad News About Air Cars

cheeks5965 writes "We've argued before over compressed air vehicles, a.k.a. air cars. Air cars are an enchanting idea, providing mobility with zero fuel consumption or environmental impacts. The NYTimes' Green Inc. blog reports that the reality is less rosy. New research from UC Berkeley and ICF International puts a period at the end of the discussion, showing that compressed air is a very poor fuel, storing less than 1% of the energy in gasoline; air cars won't get you far, with a range of just 29 miles in typical city driving; and despite appearing green the vehicles are worse for the environment, with twice the carbon footprint as gasoline vehicles, from producing the electricity used to compress the air. Given these barriers, manufacturer claims should definitely be taken with a grain of salt."

Comments

Re:Zero Emissions are worse??

[AmigaHeretic]

"Carbon offsets" is a joke, wake up people! Any emission is an emission.

I hold all my farts in sir!

Time for a new tagline

[heffrey]

Slashdot - news for idiots, stuff that's obvious

Re:"zero fuel"?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Dig really deep hole
2. Drop tank to bottom of hole
3 Seal tank
4 Raise tank
5 Profit!

Re:Zero Emissions are worse??

[mweather]

Easy. Use solar panels to power the factory.

I was greatly disappointed by the lack of hovering

[Cormophyte]

"...Air Cars" is an amazingly deceptive headline :(

Oh thank [insert deity here],

[kothmac]

I thought this was going to be a story crushing my hopes of owning a flying car.

Technology transfers poorly from guitars

[Lemming Mark]

I own an air guitar and it's actually pretty sweet - I can make like I'm rocking out wherever I am. Whereas an air car ... I don't see the market. You're at a party and the music's pumping and you just decide to "air drive" to the shops? Not cool.