Just for the Hell of it: www.theaircar.com

Every so often, I bring this up.

A multi-purpose city vehicle, with zero polution, decent speed, and acceptable range.

www.theaircar.com



Think I'll email this to Kerry.

always have to look so wimpy. I mean, really, I would get beat up driving that.

Only three seats, but if I drove just it to work for a year I'd be saving 600+ gallons of gas.

because the engine supplies less torque than a big gas guzzler. The unusual shapes are usually some kind of nod to aerodynamics.

But I sort of agree with you. The designers always seem to go out of their way to make these cars look *extra* different. I'm pretty sure that one reason the Prius is so successful is that they designed it in a style that looks visually familiar to an American.

Besides, I guess I'm just enough of a Socialist to say "Hey, I just drive the damned thing to WORK. I don't care WHAT it looks like if it doesn't polute, and doesn't use gasoline. "

Hey, did I forget to say it only needs an oil change every 50,000 miles and uses SOYBEAN COOKING OIL?

at the same time I do think that the designers of these alternative vehicles shoot themselves in the foot by making their cars look funny. I realize that some of these designs relate to performance, but for instance: I bet you could design one of these air-cars so that it looks like an American mini-van.

I guarantee that it would sell 100 times better here in America if they made the thing look more like an Aerostar.

Instead of a HUGE tax break for the greedy folks doing Hummers?

Who in the FUCK needs a Hummer anyway? I have never seen someone driving a muddy Hummer, so the backwoods excuse kinda sucks.

D'ya think greed outwieghs vanity for most? Tough one!

Silly monkeys!

I frequently wish the rats and other rodents good luck when we shuffle off.

apply tax incentives, *and* make it look less dorky. It isn't a zero-sum game.

...but it doesn't say much for the intelligence level of the US consumer.

Plus, I don't care if it looks like a giant TOAD, maybe it's time the right to behave like we are the only people on earth and have the penultimate right to piss in the pool were REVOKED.

Like they ever really existed outside of our imaginations...

And see how long it takes for sales of these "funny" looking cars to take off...

that is a FRENCH vehicle!

OMIGOD! I STILL hate America!!!

That's what the 7th graders working in the White House said.

(no offense to 7th graders)

a kick from the treehugger.

I'd drive one!

Thanks for posting this. :thumbsup:

with air conditioning? :shrug:

I'm not judging, just sayin'...:hi:

Comes out of the tailpipe at 60 degrees F, and it's cleaner than it went in because the air is filtered before its pressurized.

By the way, suggested price is around $8,000, the effective lifespan of the engine is indefinite because the max temp of the pre-compression cylinder (also the source for the heater) is less than 500 Degrees C.

They also make a pickup and a van version for commercial use with only two seats.

I could've learned that for myself had I taken the time to read, eh? *blushes* ;)

Thanks for posting this, it's definitely something worth looking into! :hi:

Besides the extremely popular motorbikes, the streets were full of this type of car. It was called the "smart car".
It's not available in the US!!
They are about the size of two motorcycles strapped together.
Being that gas is so expensive in Europe, the very small cars are really taking over the market.

You can see them at:
http://www.thesmart.co.uk/index.html

And I probably wouldn't be as sweaty after a 15-mile commute as I would in a HPV...Oh, air conditioning from the exhaust?
180 miles on a tank of compressed air?

This is interesting.

Thanks for the link!

This would be for home use and would recharge the vehicle from the storage tank in about 3 minutes or in six hours if the home storage tank was empty which would never happen.

Can you say FREE FUEL???

Cheney would never stand for it...

If the guy who designed and made this was in America, he'd soon be given the same treatment as Tucker.

He was trying to max out power/fuel use curve for racing, when he noticed that if he used cold air and hot compressed air, he could run a vehicle.

I think the guy should be Nobel material.

I'd like to see how far a design like this would go with Ford, GM or Chrysler.

If Kerry wants to excite the country, CHALLENGE the country to be rid of foreign oil in 20 years.

Projects like this are the future, whether Bushco like it or not.

then I'll bet you'd be able to buy one here by Spring.

Heather_zichal@kerry.senate.gov

Might want to send a short note with your post.

now if everyone ELSE would do the same....

SAVE THE GODDAMNED WHALES GODDAMNIT!

And the Manatees too, while you're at it.

:kick:

What does it use for fuel?

How can its exhaust be colder than ambient?

Doesn't it take energy to compress the air it runs on?

Sounds like a perpetual motion machine variant to me.

Could someone who knows physics please elaborate?

Did we find a way around the laws of thermodynamics?

--IMM

Like George Jetson's. It's the one invention I am really waiting for.

The energy stored in compressed air is like the energy stored in a spring. Can you envision a practical vehicle that runs on a wound up spring?

Has anyone here owned/driven one of these? Can you order one?

I don't want to dampen hopes and forgive my skepticism, but this sounds like total bullshit.

--IMM

stored energy is stored energy. Energy density and safety are the two main issues. Compressed air allows for high energy density, with good safety.

energy. Its density is much greater than the physical energy of compressed air. The contents of a gas tank can blow up a building. Can the contents of an air tank blow up a building?

Why don't rockets function on compressed air? Why do they need exotic chemical fuels?

How do you rate yourself as a physicist?

--IMM

Edited for punctuation.

I don't know of any fundamental physics reason why you can't achieve a higher energy density than gasoline with compressed gas. You just have to compress it enough. Unless it becomes a liquid before it's density gets high enough. I bet somebody out there would know.

Chemical energy isn't inherently more dense than mechanical energy. But our current materials technology seems to make it hard to store mechanical energy at such high densities.

A leaf blower needs a gasoline engine. A chain saw needs a gasoline engine. A lawn mower needs a gasoline engine.

But there's this car that runs on a tank of compressed air?

Anybody here in the market for a bridge?

--IMM

my golf is the safest small car on the road, gets 700 miles to the tank, and can run on fuel made from waste fryer oil. I don't need no stinking plastic air car.

From their site:

The engine has 4 two-stage pistons, i.e. 8 compression and/or expansion chambers. They have two functions: to compress ambient air and refill the storage tanks; and to make successive expansions (reheating air with ambient thermal energy) thereby approaching isothermic expansion.

It's a lot of gobbledygook. It sounds like it compresses its own air. More perpetual motion.

--IMM

you plug it in to run the pistons in "reverse", and fill the tanks.

I still don't think that will do it.

Why isn't there any other machine that runs on compressed air? What is this "ambient" energy that they talk about?

I went to a seminar some years ago with a dude selling an energy system that sounded a lot like this. He ran fast when I started asking thermodynamics questions.

--IMM

In fact, I just got an air compressor for my birthday yesterday.

I realize that is very different than running a car. But people make improvements to materials, and engineering, all the time. Maybe this guy has too.

Also, I'd point out that his car has significantly less range, especially at high speed, and it's smaller than most gasoline cars. So, he's not even claiming to have equaled or surpassed the energy storage of a typical gasoline tank.

One thing I noticed about this site: whoever wrote it isn't super fluent in english. I think some of the confusion is that he's not expressing himself very well in english.

I should add that it's impossible to *prove* this guy can do what he says, since he's holding back details. If he's for real, then I assume we'll be seeing his cars on the road, eventually.

Yeah but I mean machines that run on stored compressed air. Even when you rotate your tires you are still hooked up to the compressor. And it's not long before it has to refill the tank.

Picture putting that air compressor in your car. How far would it get you. OK, so maybe this guy's is ten times better. How far is that?

--IMM

I would like someone to answer my questions.

I'm horrified if all of you are so gullible, or if there's no one around that knows some physics. Talk about an education system.

--IMM

"A conservative believes that nothing should ever be done for the first time."

You are seriously pissing me off. I don't appreciate you implying that we are all a bunch of dummies. You ever heard of keeping an open mind?

I hope by this point that you've at least bothered to read the website. You obviously haven't to this point.

And while on the subject of reading, did you see post 10 below? Maybe the smart car is a different animal altogether, I don't know. According to the Aircar website they should be currently selling these. Whether or no, would it kill you not to piss on everybody else's enthusiasm?

thecrow (99 posts) Fri May-14-04 02:34 PM
Response to Original message

10. I was just in Italy and saw cars lik this!

Edited on Fri May-14-04 02:38 PM by thecrow
Besides the extremely popular motorbikes, the streets were full of this type of car. It was called the "smart car".
It's not available in the US!!
They are about the size of two motorcycles strapped together.
Being that gas is so expensive in Europe, the very small cars are really taking over the market.

You can see them at:
http://www.thesmart.co.uk/index.html