World's first air-powered car introduced

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Mar 7, 2008 | 08:54 AM

#16

ES350Bob

Lexus Champion

Joined: Aug 2006

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From: Florida

Quote:

Originally Posted by Och

Do you honestly buy it? Do you know what kind of power compressor you will need to fill the tank that "holds 52 gallons of compressed air at 4,351psi". Think about it, to fill your average tire, which holds maybe 5-10 gallons of compressed air at 30-32psi, it takes around a minute with your average compressor, now imagine filling 10x the volume with 150x more compression? You're going to need some industrial grade high power compressor, and it will draw way more than $2.00 worth of electricity to refill that tank.

As far as exaust, its another load of crap. Yeah, the car itself may not be polutting, but the compressor that fill is uses electricity, which in turn is generated by burning coal or oil.

I'd either buy one myself or go to the scuba shop up the road to fill up, that is only if gas stations did not offer compressed air for them. As example below, they are currently in place all over the USA just not set up for filling up compressed air vehicles. No gas used to travel to get gas, or for delivery tanker to travel to fill up service station tanks so i could travel there in the first place.

http://www.northshorecompressor.com/newcomp.html

4,700 psi 30 amp 230 volts (6,900 Watts <-- 4,000 or more less watts than a home electric heat strip kicks in every 20 minutes or so in winter) 3.5 cubic feet per minute output

Mar 7, 2008 | 10:17 AM

#17

Och

Lexus Champion

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Joined: Feb 2003

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From: NY

Quote:

Originally Posted by ES350Bob

These scuba cylinder compressors are slow, and if you were to use the electricity they draw directly to power the car, it would be much more efficient than using it to compress the air and then to power the car.

And like I said, most of electricity is produced by burning oil and coal, so you still have to deliver them to the power plants.

P.S.

A 50 gallon tank will have around 7.5 cubic feet of space. Lets calculate how many cubic feet of air it will have at 4300psi.

Volume of gas at atmospheric pressure = (cylinder volume) x (cylinder pressure) / (atmospheric pressure)

So

7.5 x 4300/14.7 = ~2194 cubic feet of air.

At 3.5 cubic feet of air per minute, it will take 626 minutes, or ten and a half hours to fill the tank, and at 6900 watts, its the definition of inefficiency.

Whats the cost of electric energy nowadays? About 10 cents per KW? So thats 69KW x .1 = $6.90 per hour, or $72 in 10 and a half hours - just to go 90 miles (at best) in a poor excuse for a crapbox with tires? No thanks.

Last edited by Och; Mar 7, 2008 at 10:48 AM.

Mar 7, 2008 | 11:08 AM

#18

bitkahuna

CL Community Team

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Joined: Feb 2001

Posts: 80,472

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Quote:

Originally Posted by JLSC4

So why do all these other countries don't care about safety?? They let everything go without any standards of safety. It's amazing.

Being dependent on the Middle East isn't good for 'safety' either. This kind of car would be awesome in a city, say for taxis where you really don't need 8 airbags, ABS, steel side impact beams, and on and on, for that 10mph crash you might get into.

Quote:

I always see these pics of 3rd world countries with 75 passengers clinging onto the outside of a 20 passenger vehicle. It's crazy. They aren't afraid to die I guess.

Maybe you're forgetting THEY'RE POOR!