A little radiation never mutated anybody.

 

For those whom saw "Future Car, the fuel" I Personally liked the air powered car. Now its not the fastest or the best looking but of all the fuels idea it seemed to have the most upside. Sure it needs compressed air but once started it could be equiped with an air compressor that could be compressing air while it drives. Truly the cleanest of the group. Air in and air out. Never run out of "gas" if air is your gas that is.

 

And what exactly is going to drive the air compressor? Aside from some regenerative braking like the hybrids use, it's not like the engine can power the compressor to return air to the tank for the engine to use and keep the cycle going indefinitely (as the announcer seemed to imply at the end).

I would like to know more about this compressed air car though. Compressed air would be a means of storing energy just like batteries or hydrogen, but I just can't see it having the energy density of either. Seems to me that if you're going to have a lot of something compressed under the floorboards, make it hydrogen so that you can at least take advantage of its chemical energy.

 

Well since you appreaently didn't see this in the lounge.

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...ghlight=Fusion

 

Well they didn't explain how they were to compress the air on the vehicle while driving but they did state it could be done. Common knowledge would say that once you have the compressed air to start the engine it would be easy to run an auxiliary air compressor off the engine to keep the tanks at a certain pressure level.
The whole idea seems to work becasue cumbustion engines need to explode a fuel to cause a rise in pressue to depress the piston and turn the crank and then the wheels. The compressed air engine seems to just use compressed air being introduced into the combustion chamber to cause the pressure rise and piston depression. No explosion or use of chemical energy in a reaction. Will it work on the real world day in and day out but we'll see.

I have to disagree with you on having hydrogen tanks over compressed air on board. Yes compressed gasses are always a potential danger but hydrogen is much more dangerous than compressed air.

 

No, it will never work.

Without some outside source of energy being input in the system (such as the stored energy in gasoline), you're just describing a perpetual motion machine. Since no system is 100% efficient, each cycle of using the air to run the motor and then the motor runs the compressor ends up bleeding off energy, so eventually it just stops running. To move the car an inch you're going to have to give off a net output of energy.

 

Well again I just saw this on Future car so don't hold me to all the engineering principles, it was a long day and with one more glass of wine and a flying car would've been plausable.

But from what I saw they use compressed air done from solor or wind power and added that to the cars onboard tanks. This in turn is used to run the engine. I remember them saying the engine wasn't exactly like a gas powered internal combustion engine but similar in theory. The compressed air was used to drive the piston and then expelled into the atmosphere. So their car could only run a certain number of miles before it needed a refill in compressed air. But they eluded to the idea that an air compressor could be run off the engine like we run power steering or A/C to continually compress more air from the atmosphere as you drive thus taking in and then expelling but not a connected system.
Check it out for yourself.
http://www.theaircar.com/

 

That makes more sense. I don't think its much of an environmental plus since you'll have to run air compressors somewhere off of some kind of fuel.

 

I'm still skeptical too because it almost seems too easy or too good. Why wasn't this thought of before and whats the catch...

But if what we see is true I think this may be a real option for a city car that could run the compressor at home from solar or wind power and then once the air is put into the car the thing would seem to fuel itself, sorta.

 

Not to mention that the onboard air compressor would have to be small, ultra light-weight, and super efficient so that there was minimal loss...

... possible? Theoretically, yes. Likely? When pigs fly.

 

heh.. and when you get back down to the basics.. you can argue an air compressor is more or less a "combustion engine in reverse"... with an added step of taking the compressed air, and having to "reconvert" that back into mechanical energy.

So air itself, I don't think its going to power anything in the real world.. HOwever, I heard UPS trucks are using hydraulic hybrids now in their trucks?

 

If your going to bother running a engine onboard just use it to charge batteries/capacitors. The advantage of doing this instead of direct drive it the engine can be run at it's peak effectincy RPM. Also the constant RPM's could put into thought other types of engines.

Personally i'd like to see a disel bike motor used in a generator, as they get great gas milage already.

 

But I'd bet the emissions would suck, thus defeating the purpose of it being a "green" alternative.

 

Wind power = clean electricity

 

Do you know how many windmills it would take to power a car?