Triumphrat

ruscook · 06-10-2008

No it doesn't fly, but it does run on compressed air - neat. I know it's not a bike, but if they could get a big enough tank on it, then it should be possible. Maybe for a scooter (more bodywork to hide a tank) than a bike???

The Compressed Air Car developed by Motor Development International (MDI) Founder Guy Negre might be the best thing to have happened to the motor engine in years.

The $12,700 CityCAT, one of the planned Air Car models, can hit 68 mph and has a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units. MDI says it should cost only aroun d $2 to fill the car up with 340 liters of air!

The Air Car will be starting production relatively soon, thanks toIndia's TATA Motors. Forget corn! There's fuel, there's renewable fuel, and then there's user-renewable fuel! What can be better than air?

Russ

Wombat · 06-10-2008

I saw the development of this on the Discovery Channel, but I had no idea that TATA had bought the rights to it and were in production.

Interesting concept though.

Old Scratcher · 06-10-2008

I read about this car a couple of years ago, but it was being developed by a French consortium. They must have sold it on to to the Indians.
Definitely a good idea, at the right time in history.

Tbirdnz · 06-10-2008

It doesn't say so but it probably has an inbuilt compressor too, or should have, pumping up the tanks as it drives along from it's inertia.

Reasonable looking town commuter car.

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Ride on !

Wombat · 06-10-2008

IIRC, it has some sort of regenerative braking system that turns the motor into a compressor when going down hill or braking.

miker · 06-11-2008

This is pretty exciting really, and could be developed further by simply adding a small petrol or electric motor to continue to top up the air tank, then add recovery accumulators to either front or back wheels to assist in air recovery, plus I saw somewhere there is a guy harvesting the spent air from air tools with some kind of recovery system as well. With a bit more thought, it would me almost self energising.

It does however make you wonder what the service stations are going to charge for compressed air.

It also reminds me of a very funny Ben Elton play called Gasping - This is a breif synopsis, and worth a read if you can get a copy. "Lockheart Industries are looking for a new product to make them huge sums of money. Their whizz-kid Philip comes up with the superb idea of designer air - Perrier for the lungs, in the form of their patent-pending Suck And Blow machine. For a while, all is well, and the machines are a huge success, as sales massively exceed all projections. But greed forces up the price of air until the oxygen industry becomes privatised. And if you can't afford to pay, you have no right to live. Philip's conscience ultimately wins through at the end of the day, and he takes extreme measures to rectify everything he feels he has destroyed (and wreck the Suck And Blow machine)."

Mick

Diego · 06-11-2008

Some readers of this forum may recall that about three years ago, I patented the unique combination of matter that constitutes air, so for the next 14 years Tata can send their royalty checks to me.

After that patent expires, I plan to do as the pharmaceutical companies do and take out a new patent on air in combination with other substances. I'm already hard at work developing Air Mk II, with new, improved phlogiston.

But seriously...

Quote:

There's fuel, there's renewable fuel, and then there's user-renewable fuel! What can be better than air?

...we need to remember that air pressure is NOT a fuel or an energy source. It's an energy transfer medium. (So is hydrogen, for another example. It's not an energy source. It has to be manufactured/extracted, which requires a bit more energy from some other source than it will deliver.)

The energy one gets by expending the pressure of compressed air also has to come from somewhere. In most cases, it will be from electrically powered pumps, which means the actual energy source will largely be coal and nuclear power plants for the foreseeable future.

If we already had an overabundance of electrical energy, and preferably from renewable sources, then energy transfer media such as pressurized air or hydrogen would be a wonderful replacement for petroleum-fired powerplants in motor vehicles. Until that day, it only transfers the problem of providing the underlying energy to some other vendor.

Derswede · 06-11-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diego

But seriously, we need to remember that air pressure is NOT a fuel or an energy source. It's an energy transfer medium. (So is hydrogen, for another example. It's not an energy source itself. It has to be manufactured, which requires a bit more energy from some other source than it will deliver.)

The energy one gets by expending the pressure of compressed air also has to come from somewhere. In most cases, it will be from electrically powered pumps, which means the actual energy source will largely be coal and nuclear power plants for the foreseeable future.

If we already had an overabundance of electrical energy, and preferably from renewable sources, then energy transfer media such as pressurized air or hydrogen would be a wonderful replacement for petroleum-fired powerplants in motor vehicles. Until that day, it only transfers the problem of providing the underlying energy to some other vendor.

No prob....I'll just stop by my favorite politician....FREE HOT AIR! Actually, joking aside, why hasn't someone thought of solar panels on top with an on-board electric compressor to top off the tank? Solar is about as "free" and "ecologically friendly" as you're going to get.

Derswede

Hmm....solar panel over my head on a "compressed air bike?" Bunch of weight up there? Hate to see what it would do in the twisties....

Pablo · 06-12-2008

But, unfortunately, the last I heard the US was not going to get it. No doubt has something to do with Big Oil!