Worlds first air powered car!! Zero Emissions by next summer 2013!!!

I'm not sure if even the person who posted this thread read the article. It doesn't say anything about 2013 in it. The article is from 2007 and is old news.

Im an auto tech and have been for over 20 years and i like the idea of this. Less junks out there rotting and polluting the world as far as the tanks those things are high grade steel wrapped in carbon fiber good luck making one explode without breaking off the valve. At 4dollars plus a gallon id pump it up with an old air pump to save that kind of money at the pump. Star for the find.

Also, when I was a kid in the 1970's, there was a whole fleet of air-powered cars running deliveries around in my town. These folks are no where near the "world's first."

History of Air-Powered vehicles.

The ones my town used to have looked like a geo metro, with a tall tank strapped to the top! They were pretty low-tech, but they were functional, and they could fill up with air at any gas station, they didn't even need a special compressor station.

reply to post by getreadyalready


There has not been 1 remark from the godfather yet that states the car is indestructible....Nothing is that is on the road today.....The point is, if we take the designs from India and turn them into actual good designs here, we might be able to make an all air powered car....

Still doesn't make sense does it???

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein


I have a good when people make comments like big oil do you think fuel is the only thing they make money from

A partial list of products made from Petroleum (144 of 6000 items) One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline. The rest (over half) is used to make things like

A list here

www.ranken-energy.com...

If they are not making fuel the oil will last LONGER to make the other products.

THEY win either way!

reply to post by ed1320


If you pump all day you might get enough pressure to get out of the driveway.

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein


Yeah i would trust just the tank alone. Carbon fibre is definately the way to go.

Just trying to put a rest to any claim that this is unsafe or unfeasable lol.

People have no will to figure stuff out nowadays it seems.

Omg its a WMD al-qeuda car conspiracy to get mobile nukes on every road and every garage in the world!! Lol

If you ask me, the deaths from the air tanks will far outweigh the deaths of innocents in the name of securing future oil. People can also be independant for energy needs and thats always a good thing for society.

Sounds like this idea was suppressed. Article is from '07 not '13 as title suggests. Too bad this aint availible. Like to know more about the engine and transmission.

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein

This is groundbreaking to big oil....How will big oil react??

A genuine air powered car you can "fuel up" at home with an air compressor or at designated gas stations with compressed air fill ups!!

I think they would be pretty happy

This six-seater tax, which should be available in India next year, is powered entirely by a tank filled with compressed air. Read more: World's First Air-Powered Car: Zero Emissions by Next Summer - Popular Mechanics

Especially if you used one of these to compress your air.

Compressed air cars are not new... And it takes hydrocarbons to produce the energy to compress the air.

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein

Obviously you would engineer a fail-safe in case of a puncture or build an encasement for the tank that it nearly indestructable

He did say that though.

Nothing personal, I just get tired of people taking credit for reinventing the wheel, when it was done in the 70's, it isn't all that much more efficient, it isn't coming to the US, and it isn't all that promising in the first place. It is just a novel idea, that won't go anywhere, but there is no harm in trying. Perhaps some of the technology can stick and be useful in other areas.

I'm not trying to knock the car. I'm just pointing out that trimming little bits here and there is not addressing the root of our problem. Our problem is engineered consumptionism. We live disposable lifestyles. We intentionally waste. We intentionally engineer things with real or perceived obsolesence. We intentionally lower the price, and lower the quality, and therefore we keep consuming merchandise at faster and faster paces to keep the economies growing.

When you combine engineered consumptionism with capitalist economies built on inflation, and you give the power to manipulate inflation to giant banks that fund the consumptionism, it doesn't take long before all hope is lost. You could engineer a car that ran purely on laughter, or dreams, and it still wouldn't make a dent in the stranglehold of big oil or big banking.

ETA:
www.thestoryofstuff.com...

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
reply to post by earthdude

 

This site amazes me at how many people respond without reading a single word from an article!! Unreal.....

Read and then reply please.....PLEASE!!!!

I read the article:

Drivers also will be able to plug into the electrical grid and use the car's built-in compressor to refill the tanks in about 4 hours.

Read more: World's First Air-Powered Car: Zero Emissions by Next Summer - Popular Mechanics

The electrical grid runs off fossil fuels. So it isn't exactly zero emissions.

June 1, 2007 3:05 AM

The story is old. 5ish years old.

The auto manufacturer, cancelled this project... The reason being, air cars suck.

As of August 2009 there was no mentioning of the prototype or planned production of the TATA OneCAT on the TATA or MDI homepages. In December 2009 Tata's vice president of engineering systems confirmed that the limited range and low engine temperatures were causing difficulties.[3] Meanwhile all links, articles and archives relative to MDI have disappeared from Tata's website.

Source


BTW: PopMech revisited these guys a few years later realizing they were hosed during the first interview:

Source


And the guy from MDI is a lier too.

Originally posted by boncho
The auto manufacturer, cancelled this project... The reason being, air cars suck.

I could have told you that 5 years ago.

So why is the OP posting about tech that was killed years ago because it sucks? OP didn't see the dates in the article were 5 years ago or something?

And even if air cars didn't suck, they cause just as much if not more pollution running on coal instead of gasoline, as you suggested.

Even if you pumped it up yourself, first it's a lot more work than you think, and second the amount of food you'd have to eat to generate that many calories would end up polluting the atmosphere with the extra methane you'd produce. So that's not really a viable option, and would still pollute the atmosphere.

reply to post by Vasa Croe

Now for the all glue construction.....just give it one good summer day anywhere in the southern US and lets see how long it takes to fall apart. Why would they glue this thing together?

This air powered car was invented in India. I am pretty sure that India's temperature gets pretty hot. I am sure they did some testing for this glue construction. What I would like to see is some testing for cold countries, like here in arctic Canada.

Originally posted by ed1320
Im an auto tech and have been for over 20 years and i like the idea of this. Less junks out there rotting and polluting the world as far as the tanks those things are high grade steel wrapped in carbon fiber good luck making one explode without breaking off the valve. At 4dollars plus a gallon id pump it up with an old air pump to save that kind of money at the pump. Star for the find.

OK fellow mechanic. But think about high pressure fuel lines. Those are only what? Like 50 psi at best. Now what are these 4350 psi lines gonna look like? Do you want to be a tech working on one? Letting it pressure up? Ya go ahead check that system. Especially first generation models. Count me out. After buying plastic tools to work on a prius I think enough is enough.

You can have it. I will draw the line. If an alternative means is needed. It needs to be practical and thought about well.

And good luck getting an old air pump to fill up to 4350 psi.....

Back in the '80's, a tv show called "That's Incredible" did a story about a man who was powering a farm wagon with compressed air which was pumped up by a wind mill.

Now that was really non-polluting and, except for the cost of constructing the whole thing, almost free transportation.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Okay well, I'm tired of people waiting for big business to hand them something that benefits them. Because it is not going to happen. They want you DEPENDENT on them.

I did not once mention anything about today's car companies or engineers. I also did not say the car would be indestructible. I said make an ENCASEMENT to put the tank IN that is NEARLY indestructible, therefore minimizing the damage if there were ever to be an instant depressurization.

I am not re-inventing the wheel. I am simply stating what I would do if I were to build one for myself. Because when I engineer things for myself there is no profit motive.

Also are you most engineers? Please spare me with you baseless statistics and blanket statements.

If you want to wait for one of these to get into production have fun because it will never be.

Instead of rambling on about how its old technology and how its impractical, how about you think on how to improve the design??

I would definitely invest in this, improve upon it share.

You would rather put words in my mouth and try to make me out to be delusional so maybe you can sleep better at night? I don't know what your game is but please stop putting words in my mouth.

reply to post by hdutton


Nope. (The rest of this rant is not pointed at you. )

Still polluting. You are converting natural wind energy that fuels ecological processes, and you are harnessing it, converting it to some other kind of energy that serves man, and along the way, you are losing inefficiencies to heat waste. So you harness a certain amount of energy that was already purposed for something, and then you waste 70% of it to heat that nature didn't intend, and then you manipulate the other 30% into compressing air that will run a vehicle for a few miles. All the while, we are eating 3 to 4 times the calories we need to survive and sitting on our rears turning those calories into fat instead of just walking, jogging, or biking down the road to wherever we needed to go. So it is harness, waste, manipulate, waste, manipulate, waste, on top of the already existing dietary waste.

Big oil is not the problem. Waste is the problem.

We cannot harness anything from nature and assume it is "free." All the energy in nature is already fueling some type of natural process, and anything we harness will have repercussions. Even solar. And I am constructing solar panels for my own home, but I also realize solar power is not free, it is already doing some purpose, and I am going to manipulate it to my own purposes and damn the repercussions.

reply to post by boncho


Boncho, getreadyalready.....I understand both of your points and I completely agree that this car sucks!! It is not THIS car that excites me...It is the idea.

I understand these were available in the 70's......Where have they gone too?? What happened to the 100% electric cars that Honda and Toyota had available in the 70's??

Yes they are trying to get them back now, but with little success......

The idea of a car that doesn't cost $100 a tank to fill up is what I am excited about!! I am hoping that bringing back electric cars and starting to try to build an air powered car will actually get some of the big brains together to help assist this poor country into something that doesn't require sooooo much money to maintain!!

There are other options out there also, the butane powered car is what else excited me....Being that butane cost's next to nothing and there is plenty to go around....

Remember....Just the idea excites me, not the crap design (although a carbon fiber gas tank would be remarkable for durability). Sorry if this seems anything different to you guys, but I want to find a way to help this country get out of financial turmoil!

reply to post by godfather420


You said the engineers already build in fail-safes, and they would make it "nearly" indestructible. Those are HUGE assumptions, and yes, my degree is in engineering, although I don't work as one, at least I do understand the pressures and compromises engineers make.

Now, to be honest with you, I do think the car will be plenty safe enough. My complaint with the car is that it doesn't solve anything, and it isn't useful, and it won't ever be seen in the US, and in fact the project is already dead. Had you invested in it, you would have thrown away your money.

Why not invest in things that already work, but are not in general use? Why not inertial banks? The majority of fuel consumption is used up each time we start rolling from a dead stop. Then, we usually brake again immediately afterwards. WASTE. Why not store that inertial energy? F1 cars use an inertial flywheel. Little toy cars use a spring loaded mechanism that works on a similar principle. Why not engineer a way to store that initial start up energy. As we break, we spin up an inertial bank, and then when we get ready to start again, instead of using fuel, we use that stored inertia?

Why don't we attack the capitalistic mechanisms that created this wasteful economy? Watch my link above. We created an consumption economy on purpose to keep the factories buzzing. We don't need it! We could be conserving and re-using and devoting our resources to important tasks instead of more free toys in a happy meal, or more dollar store disposable plates and cups!

I had no complaint with your point of view, but the fact is, everytime we get excited about some, new, failing plan, we are missing the big picture.

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein

although a carbon fiber gas tank would be remarkable for durability). Sorry if this seems anything different to you guys, but I want to find a way to help this country get out of financial turmoil!

Carbon Fiber is definitely an exciting new material! I am currently working with a buddy to create a real-life batman suit! It uses a combination of Kevlar and Carbon-Fiber to be bullet and knife proof, and it also uses "scale" tech, like fish and reptiles, to be armored and also flexible. Its just a hobby thing. He was using the materials to make fishing lures, and we played around with it to make a car door bullet proof, and then I got the idea for a real-life batman suit!

Anyhow, carbon fiber, nano-tech, buckyballs and buckytubes, there are many exciting materials on the horizon, and I can't wait to see all their possible uses.

Still, in my opinion, we should be focusing our collective energies on changing our lifestyles. (And, I say this, as I indulge in my little batman fantasy. I see my own irony.)