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Tata Intends To Sell Air-Powered Car In India
Diggester writes "Tata Motors (an Indian car manufacturer) is changing things up with the first car to run on air, the Airpod. The Airpod's technology was originally created in France at Motor Development International but has since been bought by Tata in hopes of bringing it to the Indian consumer car market. With virtually zero emissions and at the cost of about a penny per kilometer, it is definitely one of the most environmentally and economically friendly vehicles in the world. The tank holds about 175 liters of compressed air that can be filled at special stations or by activating the on-board electric motor to suck air in from the outside. Costing about $10,000, this car could beat out most smart cars from the market." If flying cars aren't available, sucking cars seem like a nice stop-gap.
..so when are they going to do it, like, for real?
This is not an original concept! SEE: http://www.aircaraccess.com/history.htm Brief quote: For half a century the air-powered locomotive was a serious contender for the top spot in transportation because of its obvious advantages: simplicity, safety, economy, and cleanliness. Air engines were built first during a period of experimental daily use in metropolitan street transit during the 1880s and 1890s, by companies organized by inventors and air car advocates such as General Herman Haupt. In New York City a building-sized 1500 horsepower compressing station was constructed for the use of the transit locomotives that were being tested there on daily routes. Air-powered mining locomotives were manufactured routinely by steam locomotive companies. Until the 1930s and 1940s the air mule had no serious competition from electric or internal combustion engines in mining because the heat and spark made them unsafe in closed-in and gassy places. The term "air engine" disappeared from engineering textbooks between 1931 when William Lawrence Saunders died, and the end of the second world war. Gas engines had been perfected, the power of the oil industry was established, and gas was cheap.
leather-dog muksihs
Blog: @muksihs
Let the patent lawsuits begin!
Nobody's going to buy that piece of crap. It's a glorified golf cart.
Even India's poor are already turning up their noses to the Tata Nano, preferring to buy established foreign models.
I think the Nano is a great benefit to the poor, especially the upcoming diesel model, because it's designed specifically for 3rd world conditions. It even has better ground clearance because of India's pot-holed roads. The only other thing it needs to come with, is a bumper-sticker calling for ruling thug-ocracy to be thrown out.
but I don't see where the range of the car is..?
a penny a kilometer is nice and all, but I would like to see range and top speed, etc. Is there anyplace I can find this?
All this is is a blogger recycling a CNN YouTube from 2010 to get some clicks (worked astoundingly well!). And according to Wikipedia, it's been vapor since 2000.
Buy now limited offer for the following features:
Unlimited range (only down smooth slopes) ... ...
Easy to maintain (requires only spare tires, made out of wood otherwise)
No driving license required, even a child could drive it (watch out for real roads though)
Extras buyable, like pedals and brakes.
... everybody loves inflatable tatas!
FCKGW 09F9 42
The problem is that electricity (or petrol) has to be used to compress the air. And 65% of the electricity in India is generated by burning coal or natural gas. So, yeah, let's burn fossil fuel to run an inefficient air compressor to run an inefficient vehicle. The *only* way that compressed air motors make sense in cars is if you want to reduce local emission levels in a densely populated urban area.
It's an interesting idea, but they don't say anything about what that 175 liters gets you in terms of distance or power. The onboard pump is interesting (and necessary IMHO) but India's power infrastructure may not be up for the task of hundreds of thousands of cars all pumping away... if they're targeting cities, or they can get these filling stations everywhere, it might be alright.
The real problem with all these compressed air vehicles is the diabatic nature of compressing air. When you compress it, you generate a huge amount of heat that's hard to use and slows down the filling process (since the pressures are higher than normal, which will be problematic for the service station idea), but when you expand it (for power) you need to re-heat the air or else your efficiency goes way down since super-cold air doesn't have much volume. That's why they immerse SCUBA tanks in water while filling. If they figured out how to minimize that problem (maybe they use it slowly enough that it's not an issue?), they should sell a lot of them. TFA doesn't have anything suggesting that they have, though... so I'm skeptical.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
An "air powered car" is actually an electric car with the energy stored in a a high pressure air tank as potential energy. Air pumps happen to be fairly efficient and air power impellers also, so this is a good idea if a bit range limited. Probably about the same as more common electric cars, 40 miles or less.
One very cool thing is a solar powered pump can recharge the car to some degree as you go bringing the range to almost 40 miles and when parked it can recharge continuously.
Another fairly cool ting is even a fairly large air tank is light, so one can exchange car volume for range in engineering. If you happen to have an air recharge station, the tank can be first filled from a holding tank and topped off with a high volume pump.
Overall a better than average idea and no EOL pollution of note like batteries.
Wouldn't it be better to just have a small diesel?
JJ
So if I own 2 then I have a pair of Tata's?
The tank holds about 175 liters of compressed air that can be filled at special stations or by activating the on-board electric motor to suck air in from the outside. Costing about $10,000, this car could beat out most smart cars from the market.
- so if this needs 'special stations', why does it have an on-board electric motor at all? Don't make this car suck twice, first with the on-board electrical engine and the second time with the price-tag ($10,000 for the Indian market?)
MY OTHER COMMENTS
While this car has been in and out of the news for some years now what I wonder is about the thermodynamic efficiency against outdoor temperatures. Does power drop when it gets cold, as in freezing temperatures?
Your search - airpod site:tata.com - did not match any documents.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Hindi for "far more money than 95% of the population will see in their lifetime".
Neat, a car that can run on fumes--indefinitely!
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Seems like an alternative to a battery, with many of the advatages and disadvantages. How about a comparison...range, cost, safety?
Who designed this thing? A joystick for control? Seriously...
Engineers really need to start realizing that aesthetic (among other thigs) design is very important to the success of a product. No matter how revolutionary.
People were talking about how Segway was going to be the biggest thing since the internet. What happened to it? Only mall cops are seen riding them.
Nobody wants to ride something that makes them look completely ridiculous and this vehicle just looks stupid.
The problem is that electricity (or petrol) has to be used to compress the air. And 65% of the electricity in India is generated by burning coal or natural gas.
To be fair you need to consider the energy used to refine and deliver the gasoline/diesel, and any emissions in the process.
One nice thing about electricity is that even when "dirty" sources are used for generation the emissions are centralized so that there is more opportunity for capture and sequestration.
These are not zero emissions, not even close. They burn petroleum, coal, use nuclear or something else to compress the air. The air is merely a storage medium for the energy. This is all a marketing lie.
How are they going to make it spontaneously combust?
Wait until we run out of air.
Some details on the specifications, range etc of the Airpod can be found here, but some of the stats are in French.
Also, Tata originally signed the agreement in 2007. Five year old news?
Lastly, from the MDI website about the Airpod: This latest version of AirPod... [has] a base consisting of a composite sandwich of fiberglass and polyurethane... [and a] a cast aluminium frame. More details from that link.
The Wknd Sessions - Malaysian and South East Asia independent music
Bart Simpson: I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows.
Appropriately, from the episode "Screaming Yellow Honkers".
The government doesn't want you to know about it. It runs on WATER, man!
ehintz
Omigosh it is the same guy! Amazing. And the people in that thread need to be alerted that Natalie Portman has had a baby.
Tata Intends To Sell Air-Powered Car In India
Those would do better in Mexico; for India you want one that'll run on body od... oh, that kind of air! :p
(I'd better issue a disclaimer for those who would likely perceive my humor as nothing more than a blatantly disrespectful use of a worn-out cultural stereotype: I absolutely love Indian food and I could eat it all day long... and there certainly shouldn't be any shame in acknowledging that some of those spices are known for adding a certain quality to one's fragrance!).
Ya, by the CAR, but what about where you are getting the air?
I suppose it would work in a small town commute, but i think id rather have a battery powered car instead.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
'... Shes gone all the way from Suck to Blow!'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXOAc5yt218
I find more and more often Slashdot technology emulates Spaceballs.
--
Do Something! They're getting all their air back!
I already have a car that sucks.
If you have a large enough supply of moving water, you could build turbines and tie them directly to the compressors. Or i guess even wind turbines, or a bunch of people on a treadmill :)
Even if you used electricity, you can generate that cleanly and not require coal or NG. Sure, clean is not as efficient, but just saying that they are not your ONLY option.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
What makes me most skeptical is that there is no mention of this vehicle on the Tata web site. If they are making it one would expect it to be on their web site.
the user udachny is a sock puppet of roman_mir.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airpod
Let's assume that Wikipedia is accurate here...
220kg of Poly-urethane and fiberglass - even with the range they claim (which is good) this vehicle will never be viable outside of 3rd world markets. It's never going to pass a safety test because it's a deathtrap. Still it may find a niche market and I am a fan of non-petroleum concepts.
This sig contains a manual self-destruct. Kindly please put your foot through your monitor in 8 seconds.
Just make me a goat curry and shove a pipe up my ass, I'll bet I can get that car to go 100KM/day easily.
They are so getting sued by Apple...
They can't call it air* or *pod. Oh no.
"One Billyon Dollars"
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
The power to run those air compressors has to come from some place.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Well, someone's been trolled. MDI is linked to IndraNet here in New Zealand, and these buffoons have been scamming investors for years by bringing out the Next Big Thing every couple of years. Mesh Networks, the nGen Engine (try to figure out how it works!), and air cars. Vapour central. As far as I know, they have never actually made a product or earned a dime, but that hasn't kept them from spewing PR crap and soliciting suc.. - I mean, investors. Run. Away.
Whoever has invented a perpetual motion air compressor has a Nobel in Physics coming their way soon.
"According to an article on Gizmag, Tata, India's largest automotive manufacturer, has developed a car that runs on compressed air. It costs less than $3 USD to fill a tank on which it can run for 200 to 300km. The car will cost about USD $7,300 and has a top speed of 68mph. About once every 50,000 km you have to change the oil (1 liter of vegetable oil). Initial plans are to produce 3,000 cars per year."
Maybe i missed it but the last i heard an air powered car could barely run for a block or two. I'll need a demo of this car before I believe it.
Only about 20% of the Indian population is of anywhere near middle class status.
The situation varies from state to state - in my state Kerala you can conclude 70% is middle class and Kerala population is on a long term decline (like Japan), health and development indexes are comparable to European nations etc.
The situation is the opposite in rural Bihar and other big northern states.
But the 20% officially middle class is a huge number - little less than the population of United States. Still if marketers and consultants conclude they are going to buy plastic crap from China in huge numbers they will be disappointed.
Western corporations regularly make an entry to India. The first mistake they make - overprice their products and Indian competition kills them on a price point. The second mistake they make is in overestimating the consumption patterns and excess inventory gets piled up - example: original Reebok and NIke shoes end up sold on the footpath.
But I have a fascination for the management and MBAs running these organizations. They are so clueless the errors they make are laughably stupid. Compared to them George Bush was a genius.
Tat Tvam Asi
Why does every environmentally friendly car have to look like ass? Is there some reason they can't put a decent looking frame on it? This one is especially bad, reminding me of Steve Urkel's car (which, as you might remember, was intentionally ugly and cramped - that was the joke), but you also have a slew of hybrid cars that look like flamboyant space ships. If you want normal people to buy them, they have to look decent. It's gotten to the point that I actually think it might be a play by "big oil" to keep everyone using gas guzzlers until we've drained every drop of fossil fuel from the planet.
While the use of a pneumatic air system to recover energy from braking for use in subsequent starts does have some merit in a hybrid configuration, the idea of a vehicle powered completely by compressed air has been very thoroughly discredited in the published research papers. Yes, it can be done but it's terribly inefficient; almost no other vehicle is less efficient than compressed air, even battery powered vehicles are better. The wiki article on compressed air cars has a comprehensive list of their rather substantial disadvantages. Really the only situations where air cars are even considered are those where sparks or burning of fuels make both internal combustion and electric too dangerous and where their limited range and power are not substantial disadvantages. As one might imagine, these circumstances occur rarely and only in specialized situations (most notably in underground coal mines). Bottom line: air cars are simply not competitive as general purpose vehicles and basically never will be due to the laws of thermodynamics and ideal gas among others. Those who buy an air car without understanding these things are likely to be very disappointed with their vehicle's performance. I predict many angry Indian air car owners complaining about how they were ripped off and lied to by the green marketeers who said whatever it took to make the sale.
Google "rubber powered airplanes" if you want to be really impressed!
Is Tata (a major company) announcing this, or is it that nut in France saying that Tata is announcing this?
If this idea actually worked, it would be in wide use for indoor forklifts.
If your country has a rickshaw[1], it can have the airpod.
Both have similar cons; noisy death traps[2] with limited speed, range and capacity. Yet if somehow the rickshaws are in business, they the air car can make sense too[*]. Infact I would actually prefer a rickshaw that runs on air, since it wouldn't pollute everywhere it went!
If Tata will have any sense, the first thing they will do is strip that car of it's european body and crap that system into a typical indian rickshaw, and market it (and price it!) as *that*. Fuel points will prop up on their own (no really, where there is an opportunity to earn or save a rupee, there are a bazillion of us South Asians willing to take advantage of it).
[*]: That's assuming the achievable speed range and capacity are at least 80% of those advertised in the video, I wouldn't blame them for *some* exaggeration in quoting the maximum achievable range, but it should at least match the autorickshaw, which already has modest specs. Also, we don't fear high pressure gas tanks, we routinely ride those around here in the form of CNG car tanks (albeit at 200 bar, IIRC) so it's match made in heaven as far as I am concerned. :P
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw
[2]: Just look at them:
http://images.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=679&q=auto+rickshaw&oq=auto+rickshaw&gs_l=img.3..0l10.2380.8441.0.9500.13.9.0.4.4.0.277.1480.4j1j4.9.0...0.0...1ac.MVX6QrmUXGA
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
This was talked about in 2007 - http://www.citeman.com/1499-air-fuelled-car.html
5 years down the line, they are still talking about it.
No 3D printing angle? How about private space orbital factories to build these? Perfectly reasonable.
What powers the electric air compressor that can refill the car... compressed air?
They are going to have to massively increase the ground clearance on that for Indian cities.
The "Fireless Locomotive" was used in heavy industrial applications where the dangers of external ignition sources made it essential to provide motive power that wouldn't cause catastrophic explosions or pollution. Fireless locomotives were typically found in petrochemical plants and places where finely divided dusts were handled, or where the emissions of conventional steam locomotives might contaminate product or have to operate in enclosed spaces.
As the mechanisms moved at slow speed, cylinder icing problems found in small high speed compressed air motors (various posts above) were not a concern.
Energy Density MJ/Kg
Gasoline 46.5
Dried Cow Dung 15
Compressed Air @ 300Bar (4410 PSI) 0.5
Wikipedia already has a nice article about compressed air cars:
-It is safe.
-Exhaust from car is zero. Electricity for compressor can be made efficient.
Disadvantage:
-compressed air is a low energy storage compared to other.
-Long storage times, you will need a compressor at home and load it for 4 hours or something like that.
-Needs heat to expand air. Might run very inefficient in cold climate. (on the plus: free airco!)
A hybrid compressed air car might be a very good option however. Notice that a traditional combustion engine is a good compressor. Maybe tata is even creating a hybrid, they licensed the tech (see wikipedia again).
Have you visited urban India? Lots of short taxi journeys are made in petrol driven autorickshaws: there are thousands of these around, you hop onto them at the train station for a ride a couple of miles away to meet your friend in a cafe. City planners have been struggling with the pollution they kick out. My suspicion is that Tata is targetting these as the vehicles to replace.
Another posted has noted 137 miles range - how often do people take 100 mile taxi rides in cities? I think Tata is looking to get the massive and probably lucrative urban local taxi niche with these, sell them to city planners as pollution free (on the street level), clean air in cities. Most passengers are looking for ten to fifteen minute rides a few miles across town in the central areas. Set up refueling stations around all the main stations and transport hubs and you've got the taxi drivers covered: they can do ten to twenty runs then refill a couple of times a day. I can't comment on the practicalities you mention on how you operationalise a compressed air filling station - but Tata is a huge global multinational engineering company, so I'd guess if anybody can they could put resources/PhDs/finance into solving the problem.
So really it's an electric car that inefficiently converts electric energy into air pressure before usage. That's nice.
All they have to do is find a way to hook it up to the US Congress. That's an unlimited supply of hot air just waiting to be tapped.
These cars are not air powered. The tanks of compressed air that drive the cars are really just batteries.....aka devices for storing energy. The air in the tanks, like the hydrogen in hydrogen powered cars, is not an energy source. The energy stored in the tanks of compressed air comes from the energy used to power the air compressing machines.
I've seen a few documentaries on youtube about cars powered by compressed air batteries. I'm disappointed that these cars are not coming to the U.S., but I am excited for the people in India who will be getting them.
What is done with all of the waste heat that is generated when the air is compressed?
With virtually zero emissions...
Bull. Compressing air requires power and lots of it. The emissions might not be coming from the car itself but there will be plenty of emissions. Plus this still has the infrastructure network problem. Even if the drive technology is feasible (and I have my doubts on that) you still need a sufficiently large network of pumping stations to make using the vehicles feasible. It can be done but I doubt it will be.
Why do people assume that any car that requires power to run must also cause emissions?
Because they do. Outside of a few corner cases, virtually all power consumption uses at least some amount of fossil fuels and hence creates some emissions. Hopefully someday that will change but for now that is the reality we live in.
We already have many counterexamples: fission, hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, biomass..
None of which are sufficient to cover our energy consumption at present. Furthermore even in cases where those technologies operate emissions free, the manufacture of them is not emissions free. Use any steel? There is no such thing as an emissions free steel plant. Aluminum? Copper? Rubber? All those components generate emissions during manufacture. There is no present way to construct a solar panel in mass quantities without generating emissions in the process. In time it might become possible but right now it is not.
The best air-powered card in the world can get something like 20 miles to a tank. If this one is claiming it's 100+, it's lying. That means running the onboard compressor a lot. That means horrible fuel to movement ratios because of one added layer between engine and moving. They're going to be loud, fuel guzzling pieces of crap.
I would probably buy one, and I live in the US. It would depend on how much it costs to run the pump and get a full tank.
Wow - they have found a way to charge for air! [Yes I know it costs to get the air in the tank and compress it etc...]
How retarded do you have to be, to think that this is "virtually zero emissions"? Seriously? Has the author been to school? Learnt some basics?
Well, it does offer more options for killing a giant shark than my internal combustion engine.
It gives a new meaning to the phrase... "That car sucks!"
All cars with perhaps the exception of an all electric car run on "air".
Try running a car without air and see what happens. "But no, a car uses Petrol for fuel!" Actually a car uses more air for fuel than Petrol. A car uses combustion (for the most part) to generate kenetic energy, and your ain't going to get a whole lot of combustion without air.
Yes I am just being pedantic, and if I bothered to read the article I realize they are probably talking about compressed air or something.
Make it steam and huge flywheels to satisfy my steampunk craving and you have a deal!
Look at those nice tatas!
Would it be possible to treat this like the propane tanks people use for outdoor grills and such? Then the issues of refill time and heat during the refill become non-issues for the users. Swap out the empty tank for a full one.
They would be a heck of a lot easier to fill in central locations and distribute to existing markets so that you don't have the "100 miles from a special station" problem. That would increase the practical usage of the vehicle.
Obviously this doesn't address the problems with air powered cars but by taking the complicated problem of refilling out of the equation it could make manufacturers more interested in research.
Immediately remembered about Tata Motors.
But... the future refused to change.
Seriously, if this works, there's going to be a fart-powered car, one way or another.
Possibly as a gag, possibly from those "co2 producing cows" that are causing global warming.
...is it an engineering rule that ecological cars must be butt ugly?
It is what it is.
Tata Motors has filed a cliam with the S.E.C. that it will be buy several thousand shares of the franchise, "Green Burrito", ticker symbol BAD-GAS. Most analyist agree that Green Burrito is an "under the counter" stock.
Let's wait and see.
I like my spaghetti with source.
hot air!
Bark! Obama could power this thing forever, if it indeed ran off of hot air...
As an engineer i can tell you. you wont be driving one. its more efficient to use gasoline. using electricity to to run a car (or elec to compress air) uses more fossil fuels because you have to generate electricity in the first place. india however is using ALOT of nuclear power
Of all the 364 comments loaded so far*, I am very surprised no one noticed this is a perfectly within religious bounds car for the Amish. Shunning electricity and internal combustion, they DO subscribe to compressed air appliances. Also shunning the internet, someone near their community should "walk" up and tell them.
Also considering their locality names like "Bird in Hand" and "Intercourse" in Pennsylvania, a company name like Tata's should fit right in!
* (Did a control-find for the word "Amish" so far.)
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
at tata motors?