hybrid autos

I'm guessing the school you attended didn't teach physics or math?

KG

Not so fast... Sounds a bit silly but...

-- Bill

You went to the same school??

I doesn't matter what you design, how you design it, or how clever the devices, packaging, or salesmanship. A car runs on energy. Energy has to come from somewhere. It doesn't matter what form is actually used to run the car, or how many conversions you do from one form of energy to another, or how/where you store the energy. It still takes energy, and that had to be generated someplace.

An air-powered car got it's energy from an air compressor, which was either driven by a gas or diesel engine, or by an electric motor. If it was an electric motor, then the electricity came from a generator that was powered by a gas or diesel engine, or from an electric company that used oil, coal, natural gas, or nuclear energy, to generate the electricity. Any way you slice it, the actual source of energy was a fossil fuel or nuclear fission.

And no matter how convining someone is when trying to tell you that the car has zero emmissions, they're lying. The car might not emit anything when it's running; but it did, necessarily, inescapably, create its own share of smoke, smog, nuclear waste, or whatever, while its energy was being generated.

If the energy had to go through a lot of conversions and transformations before it was used (like from oil to heat to steam to electricity at the power plant, and then to rotary motion in a motor, and then to reciprocating motion in a compressor, and then into compressed air in a storage tank), then every single one of those tranformations involved some significant energy losses, which makes the whole idea of zero emmissions from an air car even more ridiculous. The car actually used (or lost) MORE energy during its total energy use cycle than if it had just burned oil directly. And it created even more total emmissions in the process.

Of course, the car didn't generate any smog or smoke or greenhouse gasses if the ultimate source of its energy was nuclear; but it did generate a lot of thermal pollution (wasted energy) and its own fair share of (eventually) nuclear waste, which is sort of a special problem all its own.

The ONLY way that an "alternative energy" vehicle might ever beat the odds and actually improve over the total results of gas/diesel cars would be if it could do just a very limited number of energy conversions, with very, VERY low losses, and could take advantage of the economies of scale that go along with generating energy in big expensive plants, rather than in small individual engines. Your local power company can make a kilowatt of energy cheaper than a car can; and can support technologies that make power generation cleaner than what you can do in a small, portable system of your own. So, if you COULD charge an electric car, and run on "store-bought" electricity, then that might actually be an improvement.

The only problems with that last paragraph are:

1. Nobody's yet built a battery or other storage system good enough to do the job.
2. The infrastructure (charging stations) to service any significant amount of traffic doesn't exist yet.
3. Your local electric company couldn't even come CLOSE to delivering enough extra energy to run more than a tiny number of cars without building some VERY big additional generating plants.

Other than that, though, the air car looks like a great idea! Can't wait to go for a ride in yours.

KG

Hmmm Eeyore again, "Oh no... gonna rain...". You must be a joy to be around...

Present tense issue - not the future.

Present tense issue - not the future.

Present tense issue - not the future. Given the downside to oil regarding power, greed, corruption, I'd happily take nuclear power. It's been beat down by the oil companies. You and many others think it was a health and saftey issue. Your a sucker if you believe that.

Come on after a hundred years+ plus of the same combustion engine your ready to doubt anything new? Yes. It's not ready yet but... something else will come (just as soon as the oil companies allow it).

-- Bill

Ok. Serious questions. Not trolling. Not looking for debate. Not looking to win anything. Just questions.

If, after 100+ years of internal combustion engines we really, REALLY need something new (and I certainly agree that we do), and if someone offers what's supposed to be new and better, but it's clearly just a sales scam aimed at governments and investors who can't tell the difference, then why is it wrong for someone who understands the science to stand up and say that it's not going to work?

Isn't that better than letting money and effort be diverted from people and companies and ideas that might actually develop something better and real?

Yes, the problems I describe for battery/electric cars can be solved in the future; but there IS no future for compressed air cars. Why is it wrong to be aware of that, and to complain about distractions and waste that could prevent us from building a future that's possible?

If we live in a world where the average person has learned all he/she knows about science by watching Regis and Kelly, and where bad decisions, bad policies, and bad ideas are already far too numerous, why is it wrong for someone who actually knows something - anything, in any area or field - to share that whenever he/she can, and at least TRY to help guide people in sound directions?

Why is it that people who stand up and say facts are so often villified by those whom the facts are supposed to help? If it really is going to rain, why is Eyore so awful just for saying so? Yes, he whines too often about things that really aren't problems, but I didn't do that here. I took a fact based look at something that YOU suggested I should look at, and I responded to what I saw. You ASKED me what I thought about the weather! Why are you offended that I answered?

KG

Not to say that you are wrong on this issue but looking at history there were numerous times when scientists, engineers ... said that something could not be done and today it is an everyday thing. I'm sure if you told anyone

100 years ago about cell phone, internet and so on they would laugh at you and call you crazy. Jerry

That's true, of course. And important. New stuff surprises us all the time; and that can be a very good thing.

As someone once said, though: It's good to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.

One of the key differences between things we've scoffed at that eventually became real and successful, and things we scoff for good reason, is, of course, good reason. I don't need to learn a new kind of science, or accept a new paradigm, or anything like that, to know whether a compressed air car is a practical idea. That's because compressed air power is not new, or novel, or in any way revolutionary. And neither is an air motor of the kind described for the car in question. Those are very normal, very ordinary things, understood in great detail, and used every day in applications that are practical.

I can know, from personal, hands-on, real life experience, that a compressed air car is not only possible; but in fact quite easy to build and use. Many of the people in this group - machinists with an interest in cars - could probably build their own air cars without much difficulty.

I also know, however, what the costs, efficiencies, and real energy consumptions will look like for a compressed air car. And they're abysmal compared to existing IC engines, and especially compared to other kinds of designs that look promising for the future.

So this isn't a case of believing in something (or refusing to believe) on the basis of what someone else has learned that I haven't. It's about someone trying to sell me a scheme for breaking the laws of physics. Call me crazy if you like; but I'm not buying it.

KG

Fair enough. The fact that one would even create a startup building a compressed air car speaks volumes. Will it ever be more efficient (or even efficient at all) than todays IC engine? I don't know, but I'm glad to see it. The more distractions to the current automakers and oil companies there are the better.

On the electric car front there is a company doing conversions of popular IC cars to all electric. One is for the Mini Cooper. 100 miles per charge - 80 mph top speed. 0-90 in 0 seconds. The current battery system lasts only 1500 cycles though. Not great but MUCH better than 5 years ago. We're so close to have real electric cars. I was hoping to replace my 14 year old Integra with something like that but alas - not quite ready. It looks like the Toyota Corolla is still the best 10 year cost of ownership (unless gas doubles again...).

As far as charging stations, there is a company highlighted on CNBC the other day that is setting up that infrestucture. We'll see if it pans out.

-- Bill

The future of transportation is already here:

To be a Greenie..you have to believe that the laws of physics and thermodynamics can be changed at a whim.

Gunner

250 KW charger? Hmm, 250,000 / 240 = 1042 Amps! Geez, my entire neighborhood can't source 1000 A at 240 V!

Now, 27.5 A at 240 V sounds a lot better. I can handle that on my 200 A home service. Let's see, 6.6 KW for 6 hours is

39.6 KWH, and would cost somewhere around $3.90 at summer rates. $3.90 / 100 miles = ~ 4 Cents/Mile! Yes, that sounds very good!

Even if the battery life is 1/10th that, unless the battery cost is over $10K, it starts sounding very economical. My current car, a 1989 Corolla wagon with 5-speed, gets 32 MPG in mixed driving, and about 40 on the highway. 90,000 miles in that, at about 10 cent/mile in fuel cost, runs $9000. Electrical cost of 4 cents/mile allows a good amount to be put away for eventual battery replacement.

Jon

First release target market seems to be fleet sales (large customers, cities, power generation plants etc.). They can afford to install 10 min. charging stations.

Let the big boys work out the bugs and see if results warrant individual consumers buying them.

Down side 100+ mile range, next model year supposed to add optional

200+ mile range with same 10 min. per charge.

IIRC: Battery production cost are near or less than conventional batteries. It is a patented process so anyone's guess what Altairnano will charge. A few years ago Altairnano entered into a partnership with a Chinese company for consumer batteries (hand tools, laptops etc.) and I haven't seen anything come to market yet, makes me wonder why.

I hope what they deliver holds up to expectations (hype).

Tom