Five-Seat Concept Car Runs On Air

"... a car that runs on compressed air, producing no emissions at all in town."

Great idea, except that the engine that compresses the air spews out emissions just like a regular car does.

Even if that compressor is a solar powered electric?

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"...just like a regular car does."
Just like?

Explain please, or where "just" trying to develop repondees?



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"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."

William Blake

"Even if that compressor is a solar powered electric?"

Of course not, but is a solar powered air compressor practical for compressing up the amount of gas and pressure needed to power a car? You may as well just charge up a battery pack instead and use that.

The article mentions nothing about compressing the air through means that do not pollute (except possibly in the case of hydro power if the grid in your area is powered by that method), then what's left to power the car but using gasoline, diesel, propane, natural gas, or coal, oil or radiation if the compressor is plugged into the grid?

One other possibility is a compressor powered by wind or water behind a dam, but these methods are most likely not at all practical.

See my reply to DC. The problem with compressed air, is that the air needs to be compressed, which requires at least the same amount of energy needed to power the car for the same distance. Unless you are using a source that does not pollute and that source is practical to use, you are better off running the car directly on the energy source rather than wasting energy by compressing gas and then using the gas to power the car.

What the article eludes to, is that "in town" there won't be any pollution, which I suppose can be a good thing in crowded cities, however there's no net reduction in pollution unless the gas is compressed using non polluting means, but then you may be better off charging up a battery instead for powering the car. The only thing I can think of, is that battery packs are generally very heavy, so there may be some advantage in charging up a gas cylinder, but some interesting calculations would have to be done to figure out what method is best.

Using compressed air to power things is a very old idea. For example air powered tools have been around for decades, but the energy source used to compress the air is usually a gasoline engine because little else is practical.

"then what's left to power the car but using gasoline, diesel, propane, natural gas, or coal, oil or radiation if the compressor is plugged into the grid?"

It doesn't say you must plug it into the grid - it can be a grid of your own making. Solar panels on your roof or your own wind turbine for example. It'll probably be a standard DC 50A socket, like you find on electric forklifts. Wiring a clean alternative would be cake.

Or, as the article states it can burn any flammable liquid to heat the air - mine would run on moonshine!

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"The only thing I can think of, is that battery packs are generally very heavy, so there may be some advantage in charging up a gas cylinder, but some interesting calculations would have to be done to figure out what method is best."

I see your conundrum. Would it help for you to think of the compressed air AS the battery?

It is after all, simply stored potential energy, the same as hydrogen is. The advantage for stored compressed air is that it doesn't have the mass of batteries, and it would get lighter as they get discharged. It also releases no pollutants, and is completely renewable and available anywhere.

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thanks for the reply
I hadn't realised the 1:1 ratio and will take it on faith that it is accurate, however.... hehehe should that not be the case idon't like seeing someone I admire
making blanket statements


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"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."

William Blake

"It also releases no pollutants, and is completely renewable and available anywhere."

Yes but that's only true *if* the energy source that charges up the gas cylinder is nonpolluting and renewable.

"I hadn't realised the 1:1 ratio and will take it on faith that it is accurate"

If I was trying to sell you shares in my air powered car company, would I tell you that?

Actually the ratio will not be 1:1 because whenever energy is transfered from one storage device to another there's some net loss due to inefficiencies in the transfer process and usually energy is required to power the transfer process itself. That's why I figure you'd be better off burning gas directly in the car rather than burning gas to charge up a cylinder first, then using that to power the car, or if using electricity to run an electric motor to charge up the gas cylinder, you may be better off charging up a battery instead but I honestly don't know which way is more efficient, and the articles I've seen concerning this "new" idea (which is actually a very old idea) avoids these questions entirely.

The only advantage is when the source of energy used to charge up the cylinder is renewable and non polluting and cannot be used to power a car directly, but usually these source suffer from a process that's generally not practical for wide spread use else we'd all be living in a happy green world right now.

The only interesting possibility is that the weight of the gas cylinder (or cylinders if there's several required) *may* be less than the weight of a gas engine or battery pack, and there may be some gains with that, however there are other considerations, such as most cars have heaters and air conditioners and require a source of electricity to power lights and other components, so it's an interesting calculation to determine how much gas (and batteries) you'd need to power a practical car - of course you could power a very bare bones car that has little to none of the accessories that we've come to expect, but then we'd be stepping backward not forward rather than finding alternatives that can do better than what we currently have.

In any case, it seems clear to me that powering cars with compress air will have only very limited practical use at best unless a cheap renewable nonpolluting source of energy is made practical and widespread so that gas cylinders can be charged up quickly on demand (improved solar power may do the trick, but currently I don't think it's practical). You could also quickly "recharge" by replacing spent cylinders with new ones at "charging stations" located around road ways, but you'd need an infrastructure built up that supports it, and the problem of charging up cylinders quickly and cheaply using renewable nonpolluting means must first be solved.

Even if the problem of charging the air cylinders is solved, the cars still won't get much millage compared to gas power cars. Regular air does not compress easily and won't liquefy, so only a limited amount of air can be stored inside a cylinder. Compressed air cylinders will be heavy and bulky unless some kind of exotic materials are used that are lightweight compared to steel. I don't know, but it seems to me we're better off looking for more practical solutions.

"...mine would run on moonshine! "

Ah, but brewing moonshine is considered 'illegal', courtesy of our authoritarian government.

You know me, always looking to break stupid laws at my earliest convenience. If I want to whip up some 'engine degreaser' for my own personal use, I see no harm in it.

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Just one additional little problem, if you have ever seen a high pressure tank rupture you would be very reluctant to drive a vehicle comprising of a large pressure container wether built in the frame from high tech materials or seperate tanks. Nice idea but no coconut, as you say with ANY energy storage device or system, when thinking "green" it depends upon how it is produced and the efficency of that process and the transfering of it to the final use.

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When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remember that the initial objective was to drain the swamp

The article says:

"Mr Negre says there's no issue with safety - if the air-car crashes the air tanks won't shatter - they will split with a very loud bang. "The biggest risk is to the ears."

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