Heard about the compressed air car?

[trof]

http://www.gizmag.com/go/7000/gallery/

A French company called MDI has partnered with an Indian company Tata Motors, to bring to market a car that runs on compressed air. That’s right, air. The power source is air and the waste product is air. A visionary inventor and entrepreneur, Guy Negre, the founder of MDI, has developed a compressed air engine that has the potential for being one of the great inventions of this century.



Negres’s compressed air car can travel 120 miles between refueling. That is significant because more than 50% of Americans live 20 miles or less from work, and the average daily mileage per car is less than 40 miles a day. The cost to operate is low, about one dollar per hundred miles. The compressed air only car will need to go to compressed air fueling stations for a compressed air refill. Once these retrofitted gas stations are in place, a refueling will take 3 minutes, will cost about $2 and will allow the driver to drive 125-175 before needing to refuel. Alternatively, there are engines being developed that either switch over to electric or gas power allowing the car to continue to be driven, while at the same time operating the compressor to refill the tank with compressed air. This model car could be driven from L.A. to New York on a single tank of gas. Because there is no heat generating combustion in the engine, changing the oil, vegetable oil at that, needs to be done only once every 30,000 miles.
http://www.scientificblogging.com/david_houle/the_compressed_air_car

Sign me up!

[Crankie Avalon]

1. Does this mean we'll have our government starting wars for other countries' air, now?

Seriously, though, it sounds amazing. Hope I live to see it.

[Deja Q]

2. Tata? Great, a car that's synonymous with a boobie. Will it look like one too?

In seriousness, this is a great development. Pity America couldn't have developed it. But is there any incentive to do anything anymore; the way Americans are being treated?

[Stuckinthebush]

3. Wonderful!

But I wish they would get a better design team. That just looks goofy. :)

[leftchick]

4. cute Too!

thanks for the link. I wonder if this will be killed like the electric car?

[LWolf]

5. Fascinating.

I hope to hear more about this in the near future; transportation that runs on air! :D

[LaurenG]

6. I would love to have one of those. I love the pickup truck!

:bounce:

[IDemo]

7. Lengthy thread on this yesterday->

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1438102&mesg_id=1438102

And strictly speaking, the power source is not compressed air, but electricity. Whether the efficiency of compressing air to ~3000 lbs/square inch can come close to charging a battery directly would be questionable to me. It takes a lot of power to compress air to that kind of density.

[AllegroRondo]

8. my only worry

sitting next to a tank of air compressed to 3,000 lbs per square inch is kind of like sitting next to a bomb. I hope they do some serious safety testing before putting them on the market.