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No, we’re not anticipating more congressional hearings. The AP (Breitbart) reports that inappropriately named Zero Pollution Motors is trying to bring MDI’s compressed-air technology to America. Again. Still. There’s only one problem. “Air compressors are one of the least efficient machines to convert electricity to work,” says Harold Kung, professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University. “Why not use the electricity directly, as in electric cars? From an energy utilization point of view, the compressed (air) car does not make sense.” What the professor appears to be missing is that the firm is called Zero Pollution Motors. Put that in your chemical engineering bong and and give it a toke.
37 Comments on “Compressed Air Headed For America. Still....”
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It could work if they could just find a way to use flatulence to charge the compressed air tanks. Or one could just drive around with his mother-in-law. Although in that case I’d think it would be more of a suicide chamber than anything else.
sounds like a great way to waste venture capital
unfortunately this isn’t 1998 and they aren’t telsa (take that how you will)
Barbi called, she want’s her bathtub back.
That thing (sorry, can’t call it a car) can’t be safe, unless used at the golf course.
I’d feel safer riding my dirt bike on the street.
I think compressed air has potential as a hybrid technology. Think about it. It’s cheap, a proven technology and not much different than the operation of an ICE. And you could use a smaller engine and use compressed air to effectively turbocharge the engine under heavy loads.
At least Tesla motors has a decent idea, even tho their plan appears to be separating investors from their money. Compressed gas is a ridiculous and unworkable idea.
What the professor is missing is that it takes hours to recharge a battery compared to (I assume) minutes to pump in more compressed air
i’m still waiting for my nuclear reactor-powered batmobile.
I’m holding out for Mr. Fusion.
They featured this on an episode of future cars on the science channel a year or two ago. Towards the end of the feature they started talking about how they planned on putting in a generator that runs off of compressed air… that could run the compressor so that the car could compress more air for itself…(something along those lines…) I stopped watching at that point.
So basically… these guys think that compressed air is the key to building a perpetual motion machine. Oh, and in order to make a compressed air driven car even feasible, they had to make the body out of plastic (so it weighs like 400 pounds) and it goes about 60mph max.
I agree with other people. If you’re that big on not using gas…. just go with an electric car!
it takes a long time to pump in the gas for a scuba diving tanks
and it produces a lot of heat, the cooling effect you have when you let the air escape has a flip side
in countries that has excess LPG/propane/cng type gas i would think this is the better solution
in any case, i can’t see compressed air motors being useful except in cases like forklifts or other restricted use vehicles
Minutes to reach what compression?
The big issue with compressed air vehicles is that you need an awful lot of air to run it. And tank pressures of over 4000 psi aren’t exactly the kind you’ll get at your typical tire-refilling station… you’ll need a high pressure compressor to refill a car like that, or be content to wait a few hours for your regular compressor to refill it… an awful lot like electric cars.
And nobody has ever demonstrated an air-car to run more than the 40 miles a typical electric will. Ever.
Compressing air is terribly inefficient and has a lot of energy loss in heat. That’s why a lot of the manufacturing processes have gone to electric drive tools in place of air powered.
That car looks like something stolen from a carnival ride, LOL
What inventors are looking for is not a way to turn compressed air into motion. What they want is a way to turn compressed bu11$#;+ into money.
This is incredibly stupid.
There is no way to justify having to use the amount of energy required to pump the air into these tanks and the mileage payoff of these pieces of shit would be ridiculously negligeable.
I could only see one of these things being useful in a closed area where gas fumes would be dangerous.
Since Zero Pollution Motors obviously hasn’t thought this thing completely through, allow me to put some finishing touches on the concept.
First, a name. I suggest Fartillac. Feel free to run with it.
Second, put a big air scoop above the heads of the passengers. Then, once the vehicle is at speed, turn off the compresssor. The pressure from the incoming air can be harnessed to generate the power to the wheels, and it will use no fuel at all! It will be the world’s first vehicle powered by perpetual motion!
This should please the greenies until they get the kinks out of the cold fusion thing.
Robert Schwartz :
May 26th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
“What inventors are looking for is not a way to turn compressed air into motion. What they want is a way to turn compressed bu11$#;+ into money.”
+1. The best line I read on the internet in years.
Again?
These scammers must have a yearly press release.
And the stupid media sheep instead of doing 20 mins of research run it again, instead of ripping these liars a new one.
I dont remeber the numbers off the top of my head.
But to someone with more time.
Just to easly start ripping this scam apart:
if the engine is .5l
runs just above idel speed for most cars, or 1000 rpm.
it would use 500l of air every mintue.
How much air is this tank storing?
How less inefficient is this from an ICE? Seriously? An ICE compresses air all the time. Every cylinder does it once every other rotation. A 6 cyl, 2.6 liter motor running at 25000 RPM compresses 325 liters of air every minute. All the heat is allowed to blow away. It it wasted.
And what PSI does the average ICE achieve with each compression stroke? Does it approach the pressure required by this motor?
How much of the energy in a gallon of gasoline is converted to wasted heat in an ICE?
At least a compression plant could attempt to recapture the heat produced by compression and use some of that to feed back into the compression system.
It could also capture the emissions gases from the motor than runs the compressor and use that as the compressed gas.
Just a thought… it may not be as crazy as it looks at first glance.
And we haven’t even begun to touch on all the problems you are going to have heating or cooling the damned car. The compressed air engine doesn’t get “hot” like an ICE. So say goodbye to a functioning heater, plus any accessories you attach like, say, a radio or Air Conditioning, will further compromise the power, range, and efficiency BIG time.
oh, and yankinwaoz: The problem with that is that your engine needs that compression to drive the pistons and turn your cam/crankshaft. You start sucking ‘splodey gasses out of your cylinders you are going to completely cripple the car. You are also adding bulky (and heavy), high pressure, complex air systems to an already heavy lump of metal in the front (or rear) of the automobile, regardless of where the tanks are located. This isn’t free energy like regenerative braking provides (btw, I came up with the idea for regenerative braking in third grade on earth day).
I do sort of see where you’re coming from, another way of looking at your idea is “why not put mini-windmill-generators inside of the exhaust/emissions system to spin and provide free electricity! The heat tolerances and engineering of current materials do not support anything remotely close to these ideas.
Perhaps the guys from the old (not that old) tv show “Junkyard Wars” could attach a giant sail to it…. Hell, it’d probably be more efficient AND powerful.
Don’t diss a new technology, folks, without knowing what it’s for. It makes you appear Luddite.
Nobody wants to use compressed air to replace conventional cars.
As I wrote last March https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/editorial-the-new-geneva-convention-is-electric/
“It is hard to take such an odd job seriously, but MDI is actually already selling vehicles to various airports. The thing about compressed air, an MDI official told me, is that you don’t need expensive, heavy and complicated batteries.”
A compressed-air vehicle is great for zipping around a restricted urban area. You can re-fill it in minutes at any gas station. It doesn’t intend to compete with SUVs, so why criticize the fact that it can’t?
Airport service is just fine… you’re never more than 2 to 3 kilometers from your docking bay… but to work in an urban environment for a private owner, they’ll have to demonstrate a much wider range.
Either that, or the cars will be limited to share/rental schemes, where you can park your car outside the city center, take one of these little things in, go to work, drive back out to your car, and drive home from there.
Martin Schwoerer
Did you actually confirm or see any of this air cars at airports? Or just took the word of MDI?
Since even on their site I see no proof of these things being used.
If you guys want, I can run more numbers for you. But from memory. These things cannot work. They cannot store enough volume of air to produce the results they want.
For an example.
heres a study to look at determining ice engine pressures
http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jus/0303/kuo.pdf
The engine produces at half load ~300+ psi.
There just is no way to store that much air energy in a tank. Guys are a bunch of snake oil salesmen
michael1980,
are you really asking me whether I confirm in person, locally, what company spokesmen tell me?
Here’s a link to an airport application.
http://corporate.airfrance.com/no_cache/en/news/front-page-news/alaune-detail/index.html?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=3508&tt_news%5BBackPid%5D=2
Funny to see people slating a technology they have no idea about. Come on folks, do your research before expounding your “this is stoopid, move on please” comments.
MDI have already got many pilot projects going in France, with AirFrance for example being one of them.
The tanks can be filled in a couple of minutes with a compressor not much better than already found at gas stations (i.e charging infrastructure already there), it produces COLD air when running so air-con is for free, it has multiple airbags incase of accident that explode out from the tanks (40,000 killed on US roads per year so anything to help eh !) It costs about 7cents per mile, costs about 5,000 from new, runs around 70kms on a charge, is silent and 100% emission free when moving.
Now if batteries or any other new tech has immediately half of what this tech has and for anywhere near a similar price, I will be happy to learn what it is.
This for me was easily the Car of the Show 2009 at Geneva.
My report in CNN ireport is running this Saturday May 30th on CNN International TV :) yay !
SATURDAY 7:30A EASTERN (11:30A GMT)
SUNDAY 2P EASTERN (6P GMT)
MONDAY 9A EASTERN (1P GMT)
MONDAY 1:30P EASTERN (5:30P GMT)
Extract here:
“Car of the Show ?? For me then it was The Air Car (or AirPod) from MDI Technologies, and for only a pocket money denting 6000 Euros and a running cost of 1 Euro per 100kms, it has to be the mobility invention of the century!!!! It runs on compressed air at a top speed of 70kmh with a range of 220kms a charge. The charge takes seconds and can be done at home or compressed on board. That is frankly astonishing. How come this isn’t HUGE news! The Frenchies are apparently starting going crayzee over eet now zough and a couple of towns zey have already placed orders for some pilot car sharing sort of schemes. This should be the headline car here today, no doubt about it. It works, it is cheap, it is totally pollution free, its available now, you can charge it anywhere with safe air not much more compressed that at filling stations. This air also “explodes” out into exterior and interior airbags in the event of an accident and it will probably totally like save the planet as well.
Surely this and schemes like it is what governments should be throwing our money at wouldn’t you think ?!!”
Find out more after the jump:
http://www.mdi.lu/english/airpod.php
yankinwaoz :
How much of the energy in a gallon of gasoline is converted to wasted heat in an ICE?
There is research under way to recover some of that lost energy.
I’m wondering if there might be another issue with compressed air. What about the fatigue caused by cycling the tank between the compressed and uncompressed states? Will there be a limited life to the tanks?
Martin Schwoerer –
I’m asking if you went beyond what MDI said.
because they’ve been saying it for years.
and that PR thing you linked to proves nothing.
“Air France Industries and KLM Engineering & Maintenance are the first companies to consider using these new-generation compressed air vehicles.
They will be evaluating the AirPods from the angles of safety, ergonomics, deployment, reliability and vehicle maintenance.
”
key words
‘consider’
‘evaluating’
Both mean nothing.
I can consider, and evalate on paper.
Just some quick rough numbers.
From their website.
6 cylinder engine.
3200ft3 of air
4500psi
Assumptions:
.1l per cylinder engine
=.6l total
=.0212ft3
1000 rpm
= 21.2 ft3/min
So if the tank does no work, and just dumps the air into atmosphere (Standard pressue 14.69)
The tank would run for 150 mins.
now add work, if a gas engine uses ~300psi to work.
Using standard gas laws.
P1V1=P2V2
P1 = 300 psi
V1 = ?
P2 = 4500
V2 = 10.46ft3
(to get v2, use standard pressure for p1, and their 3200ft3 volume)
v1 at 300psi = 160ft3
or a run time of 7 mins.
so please tell me how this company is not bsing.
I’ve seen various promoters on the Internet over the years with breathless announcements of a planned factory to build these compressed air cars: Always in some remote location like South Africa or the interior of Mexico, far away from any critical reviewers’ eyes.
TonyJZX is correct about the heat effects on compression and the cooling on expansion. It’s the Joule-Thompson effect, and it adds a complication onto the air engine. Below 50 degrees F outside temperature, the expanded air will be below freezing, and one needs to design to avoid ice formation on the exterior. And of course, the compressed air must be bone dry.
What about the horse!
SexCpotatoes,
I think you misunderstood. I’m not saying to add anything to cars with ICE. I am talking about an central gas compressor plant. The plant would compress gas into bottles.
That way the motor and compressor at the plant could be set up to capture and recycle the heat produced.
We toured a defunct mine in Deadwood City, SD. They had compressed air “locomotives” to remove ore from the mine. 1930s technology IIRC. Nothing new under the sun.
What is the energy density of the compressed air fuel?
Compressed air might have a future if the energy density is much better than what we have in batteries today.
Anybody here ever go scuba diving and see a tank get filled too fast? Only happens in crappy little dive shops with a bad regulator manifold. I saw one once. Tank blew off the filler attachment and through a wall. Started a fire due to the heat it was venting when it stopped in another wall. Pretty spectacular. Luckily no one got hurt. But now picture this while talking about filling a compressed air tank to the levels being tossed about here in “a few minutes”. I see many disasters happening.
michal1980
It’s because the tank doesn’t fill the entire cylinder with 300 psi air. It would ‘inject’ at TDC and the let the air expand and do work, like in an ICE.
If you comporessed the air into a thermally isolated cylinder the temperature would be more likely to cause nuclear fusion than the compressed air would be likely to be a useful method for transferring energy.