Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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".
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.
Are you trying to tell me what I saw with my own eyes?
I went to India late last year, to multiple cities. I directly observed these things, street sleepers in vast numbers, families living in makeshift shelters at the side of the road, people grazing animals in the central reservations.
These may be cliches, they may even be preconceptions, but they are very true in modern India.
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
Because the heat is created by the fueling (compression) process, and reabsorbed from the environment during the use (expansion) process, the exact opposite of when you'd want to recover the heat.
On the up side, you get free pollutionless air conditioning every time you hit the 'gas' pedal.
the video gives it an 50mph top speed and a 90-125 mile range.
I wish people would stop perpetuating that myth. Middle class has nothing to do with USD anywhere that isn't in the US. Here in China you can lead what is basically an upper class lifestyle on less than $10k USD a year because the cost of living in much of China is that low. I don't get paid in USD and I don't buy things in USD so using that as some sort of measuring stick makes no sense.
What's more in the US they've deliberately used inflation to pick the pockets of anybody not rich enough to have a sizable portion of their savings in investments.
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
Half of India's population is now in the middle class.
It's about time to throw out the old preconceptions about the rising powers of China and India. They simply aren't true any more.
That doesn't appear to be true. Indeed, the trend appears to be in the opposite direction.
India income inequality doubles in 20 years, says OECD
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Uh, 50 km is an extremely poor rough conversion of 20 miles. It's only 1.6 km to the mile remember, whereas you've multiplied by 2.5.
20 miles is ~32 km. Making your journey roughly 32 cents in this car, not 50 cents.