Baby, You Can Drive My Air-Powered Car
Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:50PM EST
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With a family of four, I've lately been trying to figure out how to wedge my crew into a single car. Sounds easy, but have you seen how big car seats are now? The one for our toddler consumes so much space that the front passenger seat in my Subaru Forrester is pushed all the way forward and can't be moved back. My four-year-old daughter, who sits behind me on the driver's side, is wedged in to the point where here feet are constantly in my back. Isn't the point of an SUV (even a small one like the Forrester) to avoid such cramped spaces?
And so we have begun to tentatively look for a larger vehicle. But I'm environmentally conscious (really!), and I don't want to drive an even larger vehicle that uses even more gas and makes even more pollution. And so we've started looking into hybrids, but selection at the SUV and minivan level has been fairly disappointing. This is all a roundabout way of getting to the entire point of this post: A new technology using compressed air as fuel is showing incredible promise. In fact, it's so far along that the first model is headed for release this year.
Celsias has tons of details, including an extensive video on how it works. Unlike, say, fuel cells, the technology is hardly groundbreaking. Standard combustion engines use tiny explosions to create pressure in the cylinders, causing the pistons to move. With the air-car, the same cylinder-piston structure is used, but instead of gasoline going into the cylinder, a blast of compressed air forces the pistons to move. The only fuel used is for the creation of the compressed air, which can be done at home before you leave (and offering a 125 mile range), or, if everything pans out, via a hybrid system that will compress air via a small gas-powered compressor. The Celsias story says that such a system could provide 2,800 miles of range on one tank of gas.
Naturally, the first model of air-powered car isn't much to look at, strongly resembling the tiny, electric "Smart Cars" you see buzzing around the tourist traps. But an engine is an engine... if this little guy delivers, I'm sure it could be adapted to other vehicles. Might I suggest an SUV?
Comments on Baby, You Can Drive My Air-Powered Car
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2 Posted by sprayking41 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:37PM EDT Report Abuse
Look at VW their jetta w/diesel fuel gets 49 mpg!
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3 Posted by dougcampoli on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:47PM EDT Report Abuse
The compressed air is not a fuel as mentioned in the article; it is an energy storage device like a battery. The advantage this has over a battery; 1) no toxic materials, 2) air tanks should last a lot longer than batteries, 3) may be less weight. What I would like to know is, what is the conversion efficiency of using electricity to compress air and then use the compressed air to move mechanical cylinders compared to using electricity to charge a battery and then use the battery to drive an electric motor? ps: My 2003 VW Jetta TDI gets 55 mpg highway 49 city.
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4 Posted by kart_125cc on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:47PM EDT Report Abuse
One word: THERMODYNAMICS I did the math and it doesn't pan out. A 10 gallon tank compressed to SCUBA tank levels (3000psi) would only run at highway speeds for a few minutes - ignoring the question of how you got to freeway speeds to begin with. That's just looking at the energy that exists to be extracted in such a tank, not even considering how one might extract it in even some highly idealized process. And would you really want to be driving around with a SCUBA tank on steroids in your back seat? Not me. And as a hybrid? So much heat energy gets thrown away in the process of compressing air, you're way better off with just about any other energy storage mechanism. It's two equations: PV=nRT and dW = pdV - pressure, volume, mass and temperature, and work delivered at a pressure over a change in volume. The result is that a 10 gal tank compressed at 3000psi can only deliver 92HP-min. That is 92HP for 1 minute or 1HP for 92 minutes, or somewhere in between.
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5 Posted by mynamesnotbob on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:31PM EDT Report Abuse
New technology??? We had cars running on compressed air around here so long ago that I have track of when it was. It was at least about 10 years ago or more. There was even an air station near the downtown area on Main Street. So what's new about it?
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6 Posted by windykites1@btinternet.com on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:47PM EDT Report Abuse
There is a test vehicle in the U.S.A. that runs on liquid nitrogen, so no pollution, and presumably more power, because of the compactness of the fuel. It seems strange that no-one can think of how to use the large amount of waste heat given off by a typical petrol or deisel engine. At the moment it is seen as something to be got rid of, and usually requires an energy consuming cooling system
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7 Posted by lolaann48 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:56PM EDT Report Abuse
William Williams I wish to drive your air car, My address is 47-375 Keohapa Place Kaneohe, HI 96744. Write to Me Email lolaann48@yahoo.com
1 Posted by shutrbug@sbcglobal.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:21PM EDT Report Abuse
This is really interesting. I've been thinking about putting solar power in and the payback isn't there in a reasonable amount of time for just household use. But if I could power my vehicle with the excess power, then the payback period could be reasonable, especially at $2.80 a gallon for gas in San Jose.