Daily Mail
Coming soon: A car that runs on air?
The system works by using a normal internal combustion engine, special hydraulics and an adapted gearbox along with compressed air cylinders that store and release energy. This enables it to run on petrol or air, or a combination of the two.
Air power would be used solely for city use, automatically activated below 43mph and available for ‘60 to 80 per cent of the time in city driving’. By 2020, the cars could be achieving an average of 117 miles a gallon, the company predicts.
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The difficulty here is what happens if the car is in an accident, and the air tank fails. It’s a rocket, and it could cause rather amazing damage when it takes off, in some random direction.
Steven Den Beste on January 23, 2013 at 10:25 PM
I’d rather see a car that runs on stupid.
It’d be the only energy problem modern liberalism can solve.
mintycrys on January 23, 2013 at 10:25 PM
Yeah, what happened to the flying car. Futuristic visions from the 1920′s are almost a 100 years old now.
Oil Can on January 23, 2013 at 10:32 PM
If it can’t do 0 to 60 in under 8 seconds, I’m not interested.
As for the energy required to compress the air ….
OldEnglish on January 23, 2013 at 10:33 PM
Ok..this has ‘Onion’ written all over it…
‘..or a combination of the two..’
Internal combustion engine??
Really want to see the ‘or air’ part of this equation,,
Ok..Imma goan post this and go read the damned thing..if it is an Onion piece…Harri Kari…
BigWyo on January 23, 2013 at 10:36 PM
No…I went there..read a bit..changed my mind.
The ‘Air’ component of that POS is you pushing the #*cker to a gas station…
BigWyo on January 23, 2013 at 10:39 PM
Duh y’all,
Compressed air has driven all kinds of vehicles.
The technology is mostly off the shelf and as safe as any tank.
cozmo on January 23, 2013 at 10:44 PM
How much electricity to compress the air? How do you generate that electricity?
trigon on January 23, 2013 at 10:58 PM
Well, the air in Barbara Boxer’s head, then, should make that car a perpetual motion machine!
Warner Todd Huston on January 23, 2013 at 10:58 PM
It’s funny what can happen when the government isn’t pushing whatever green technology it deems the best.
Archades on January 23, 2013 at 11:02 PM
Back in 1983 I owned a ’77 Dodge Aspen. That year I ran across a piece about a guy driving up and down the East coast in that same type of car powered by compressed air. The problem he had was re-compressing the air at speeds lower than 35mph. His concept involved kick-starting the engine with a tank of nitrogen. Then the released air drives the engine which also recompresses the air in another tank for essentially a closed loop.
If people were toying with it thirty years ago, and this all the further we’ve gotten, I suspect there’s not much potential for this particular technology…
Ace ODale on January 23, 2013 at 11:09 PM
What are they going to call it? “The Hoover”?
Shy Guy on January 23, 2013 at 11:10 PM
Oh please don’t get me started.
I can’t look at a magazine like Popular Science printed from the days when such publications were predicting how futuristic cities would look with starry-eyed wonder. Especially not ones from the days of the space race.
Because it’s like a gut punch to wonder how much we threw away when our culture lost its collective mind in the 60s/70s.
MelonCollie on January 23, 2013 at 11:11 PM
A lot of potential tech has been left to rust by the roadside (as it were) because it’s just so much easier to plod on the beaten trail of our oil economy. There’s been no advancement because nobody but a few hobbyists and tinkerers have looked at it.
MelonCollie on January 23, 2013 at 11:12 PM
Apple needs to develop a car using the IPhone as a model. It would be a basic gas-powered vehicle with a space and set up to attach alternative green energy power apps.
Then inventors can go hog wild creating the apps, like a compressed air app, an algae app, a hot water app, a high pressure steam app, a nuke app, kitchen garbage app, mulch pile methane app, poultry waste app. People can have it delivered by Amazon and you connect it up and stuff it into place and you’re off — instant green energy car.
Heck you might even be able to have two or three different ones that you switch out depending on what you had for dinner the day before or if you mowed the law that day.
Apple would need to do it. The auto companies wouldn’t have a clue how to get it done.
Dusty on January 23, 2013 at 11:14 PM
Ace ODale, congratulations. You just invented perpetual motion.
You have heard of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, haven’t you?
Steven Den Beste on January 23, 2013 at 11:18 PM
Aw Geeze, not this crap again.
Every five years or so this concept comes up.
Although I gotta admit that this particular scheme is slightly less unlikely than any of the previous ideas I’ve seen.
LegendHasIt on January 23, 2013 at 11:22 PM
Doesn’t apply anymore. EPA repealed it in order to support Obama’s green/renewable energy agenda. Can’t have renewable energy with that entropy thingy mucking up the works so they just got rid of it. Gravity’s next. I understand that that is going to be an addendum to Obamacare legislation.
Oldnuke on January 23, 2013 at 11:33 PM
Remember when high speed flywheels spinning in a vacuum were going to solve all our transportation problems?
Oldnuke on January 23, 2013 at 11:35 PM
Yeah, that idea really sucked.
Snort. I crack myself up sometimes.
LegendHasIt on January 23, 2013 at 11:38 PM
Whether it is using this process, or some other, someone is going to figure out how to save and reuse the energy wasted from braking. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.
besser tot als rot on January 23, 2013 at 11:44 PM
Al Roker once had the runs on air.
Ronnie on January 24, 2013 at 12:06 AM
The problem is that non of the energy recovery systems have payed for themselves over the life of the car. Actually they have never even broke even.
Slowburn on January 24, 2013 at 12:37 AM
You might get 117 mph at peak (start driving after everything is charged), but once it goes far enough to begin charging that number takes a dive. better yet look how long it takes to charge tanks on an air brake system. Now look how lo.g it takes to empty the tanks by pumping the brakes a few times. Granted they’re talking about using hi pressure (3,000P」 psi ) in the Lemon Pigeon, but that means more energy to produce and even more to do so at a high rate of volume. Which would require an intake cooling system and so on. I’d wager that at the end of a 1000 mile trip a Honda civic would do it for less, regardless if it was all highway, bumper to bumper city driving or a mix. and we haven’t started on air dryer, filters etc which will jack up cost of operation. Worst of all, drivers will have to do a pre-drive inspection every day–oh joy in the heat, in the cold or rain.
AH_C on January 24, 2013 at 12:50 AM
Here’s a thot, a pinhole leak in one of those hp lines will do damage to anything nearby, to include shredding the flesh of a near y body part.
AH_C on January 24, 2013 at 12:56 AM
It is a better system than any electric hybrid car.
Slowburn on January 24, 2013 at 1:30 AM
Yeah, it’s called: “don’t drive like a moron.”
Unfortunately, that technology is a pretty well-kept secret. I constantly see the freeway ahead of me lit up like a Christmas tree. Turns out there’s almost never a child in the road; it’s just a bunch of retards who were startled by the sudden appearance of asphalt.
logis on January 24, 2013 at 5:32 AM
Hybrid electric cars will remain a stupid idea until somebody comes up with a battery that can charge and discharge a LOT faster than current ones. For now, it’s like having a heavy, inefficient, ridiculously expensive and practically useless supercharger.
The good news is that compressed air can release energy a lot faster. But that’s also the bad news. I’m not real comfortable with having a 3000-psi cylinder running between the seats.
logis on January 24, 2013 at 5:42 AM
logis on January 24, 2013 at 5:42 AM
Whenever I see those HECs on the road, four words pop up in my mind..
Fuel efficient death traps!
cableguy615 on January 24, 2013 at 6:24 AM
And energy. Search for Beacon Power which was another BO green company that failed.
Dr. Frank Enstine on January 24, 2013 at 7:18 AM
Around here it’s usually a cop, on the other side of the road, stopped, outside his car, giving a ticket to someone (“Oooh, I better slow down or that cop over there will get me”).
Odysseus on January 24, 2013 at 7:22 AM
Crackin’ me up!
petefrt on January 24, 2013 at 7:34 AM
Lol, another winner!
petefrt on January 24, 2013 at 7:36 AM
Compress air??? What will they think of next.
trs on January 24, 2013 at 7:54 AM
If you’re comfortable with explosive flammable liquid you can be comfortable with air. At least in a crash you don’t have to worry about a single spark roasting anyone in the car alive.
MelonCollie on January 24, 2013 at 9:18 AM
That’s another good point: Obviously having a pressurized cylinder running the length of the car will ADD a new hazard to driving. But high voltage batteries MULTIPLY the existing danger.
logis on January 24, 2013 at 1:25 PM