Who'd have thought we'd ever see the day where an Indian automotive company buys two european luxury brands

http://www.reuters.com/article/busin...e=businessNews

 

WOW I didn't see that coming This just shows how the economic powers of the world are shifting.

 

I'm curious to see how this works out. Have you seen some of the cars that Tata puts out?
The parent company tends to rub off on it's lesser divisions...............

 

I think they'd have to change the name if they ever came to the US. Ta ta's is my nickname for boobies

 

Tata will also be manufacturing the Italian designed air-car from zero pollution motors. A car I'm anxious for (and will likely buy). I anticipate other larger manufacturers to take queues from the air as energy prices soar for several reasons:

1) No batteries to throw away (energy is stored as compressed air instead of electricity)
2) est. 200-mile range on air alone (top speed is estimated to be 96mph...more than enough)
3) 8 gallon fuel tank...when using gasoline with compressed air (for very long trips)achieves 106mpg fuel
4 economy
4) Gasoline is optional...if service stations install high powered air stations you can refill your air tanks in about 3 minutes (making the need to gas up irrelevant...or maybe just supplementary if you're going to be going more than 200miles).

Tata motors might be a force to be reckoned with in 7-8 years.

 

I will fully admit that I haven't studdied using compressed air to power cars, but in my scuba diving experience, I know a bit about highly compressed air. To make compressed air a viable in a packaging sense, they would have to use HIghly compressed air. My guess would be around 10,000psi. A typical scuba tank will hold 80-100 cubic feet of air at between 3000 and 4000psi. The process of filling those tanks takes time and produces a lot of heat. Enough that the tanks are usually cooled in vats of chilled water while they are being filled and when filled, the tanks are heavy. (yes, compressed air weighs a lot) Additionally the tanks have to be periodically inspected for integrity. I will be really shocked if they can build a compressed air tank that will be able to hold enough energy, be small enough, light enough, and get past all the obvious safety issues.

 

A lot of your concerns are addressed in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4

For one, the air tanks are made of carbon fiber...so when filling them the heat is not so much an issue. Additionally, in an accidne tthe fiber will split and the air will spill out, unlike if they were made of steel or some other meta.

 

There are some problems w/ this idea. We all know there is no such thing as free energy. It costs money to compress all that air. Building plants/machines to compress the air will cost money. I couldn't fill this up at my house b/c I don't have a giant air compressor. Gas stations don't have the proper equipment. I have a hard time thinking that we are going to see this come to fruition w/out a lot of promises being broken.

 

Neither brand is of any interest to me, I remember getting laid off from the BMW plant because BMW lost a ton of money when they bought Land Rover. Jaguars are the biggest pieces of garbage made, they are always having issues.

 

Tata means big smelly poo in Punjabi and Hindi.

 

You didn't see it coming? There has even been talk of an Indian company investing in a European exotic brand.

 

Hasn't this been in the works for a few months now?

 

The car has an onboard compressor - takes 4 horus to fill the tanks. Of course the energy isn't free - but it's more efficient to pull energy off the grid than from an individual powerplant inside your vehicle. Compressed air is just another storage mechanism for energy - but one withotu some of the downfalls of batteries.

Gas stations didnt' have the right equipment to store E85 either until they installed it...same with hydrogen. It's a given that *ANY* new fuel/power source will require some infrastructure changes. A air compressor is a cheap, easy install.

 

If the cars can run on both gasoline and air then you don't need huge infrastructure investments, just an air compressor at home. If you can get 100 miles on a tank of air that is all we need. The average person drives less than that every day. The only time they would need gasoline would be on road trips.

 

Aren't they also working on a prototype whereby after the initial tank filling the on-board compressor takes over uses its own engery to recharge the tanks. (I saw something on tv about this.)