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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
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.
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.
... everybody loves inflatable tatas!
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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.
From 0 to 100 in 10 seconds (free-fall only)
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.
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
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.
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".
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.
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
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.
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
I forgot how few comments got modded up way back when. Maybe Slashdot needs to cut back on the mod points they're giving out.
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.
Why do people assume that any car that requires power to run must also cause emissions? We already have many counterexamples: fission, hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, biomass...
(granted, India may be unlikely to adopt those power sources anytime soon, but that's hardly the car's fault)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
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).
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.
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.
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!