French Air-powered Car To Trials

[petertribo]

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What a mockery this car would make of so-called technological progress over the last 130 years. That's how long we have had the Infernal Combustion Engine and for almost as long we have had little alternative. Looks like some serious money is going into this air powered car:

GENEVA: Consumers have grown used to the idea of cars powered with alternative fuels, from hydrogen to electricity. But running a car on air?

French firm MDI says it can be done, and used the Geneva Auto Show to display a bubble-shaped 3-wheeler it plans to start rolling out later this year.

The AirPod can travel up to 137 miles (220 kilometers) on a single 46-gallon (175-liter) tank of compressed air, producing zero emissions on the road, MDI spokesman Sebastien Braud said Wednesday.

Drivers can recharge their air supply in eight hours by plugging the car into electricity outlets, or by going to special 'air stations' where the process takes only 2 minutes.

The AirPod will be trialed by airlines Air France and KLM at their bases in Paris and Amsterdam, starting in May, said Braud. Another trial will begin in the southern French city of Nice in December.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/...ing-On-Air.php

Site for the manufacturer MDI:

http://www.mdi.lu/english/

[open4]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

[ATTACH]1191[/ATTACH]

What a mockery this car would make of so-called technological progress over the last 130 years. That's how long we have had the Infernal Combustion Engine and for almost as long we have had little alternative. Looks like some serious money is going into this air powered car:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/...ing-On-Air.php

Site for the manufacturer MDI:

http://www.mdi.lu/english/

I was told of this car earlier today but was very suspicious because the pressure volume relationship of compressed air and implied available energy even if conversion to motive force was 100% could not give the range claimed, I looked up the link you provided and find reference to dual energy source and an active cylinder camouflaged within a complex of words and Non sequitur sentences typical of the school of classic French charlotism,

What I think we have is a single cylinder internal combustion engine as the prime power source and an auxiliary, cylinder type air motor, wherein the air motor is used for short burst low power within towns for crawling traffic jams etc and the classic internal combustion engine for the donkey work,

If this is so 137 miles range on a 46 gallon tank could just as well have been expressed as infinite miles on a 0 gallon tank whilst the prime power source is running,

[unlucky]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

... and Non sequitur sentences typical of the school of classic French charlotism,

The use of gratuitous national insults can add so much to a technical argument. The other way round doesn't work though. I find that introducing pressure-volume curve concepts when slagging off someone's homeland often leads to bafflement.

[flintlock]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

I hear they are developing a version for the French Army.


Does 50 mph over rough terrain


100mph in Reverse.

[open4]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

The use of gratuitous national insults can add so much to a technical argument. The other way round doesn't work though. I find that introducing pressure-volume curve concepts when slagging off someone's homeland often leads to bafflement.

Sir,!!!
Are you denying the existence of the school of classic French charlotism ?

[ASH]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

Sir,!!!
Are you denying the existence of the school of classic French charlotism ?

Must be the spelling.

In America, it's called charlatanry or charlatanism, and our cars run on hydrinos.

Bonus pompous points for me?

[unlucky]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

Sir,!!!
Are you denying the existence of the school of classic French charlotism ?

Non pas de tout!!!

But then, there is no mention of pressure-volume curves in Tartuffe

[kingcopper]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

I've been looking into an Australian gentleman's rotary air compressed motor and it's possibilities. It's so simple. I'm impressed with it and the development of electromagnet over-unity generators.

I always though our city was stupid for buying the water company instead of the gas and electric provider. Now, I'm not sure.;)

[Rajiv]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

A Serious discussion of this topic took place in these threads here

Air Car, powered by compressed air, to begin production soon

Compressed Air Engine


The discussion here seems to have deteriorated to ad hominums and jokes -- without having any understanding of the science or technology underlying the air car -- remember, the concept of enthalpy is poorly understood by most high school graduates and even most undergraduates.

[FRED]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

A Serious discussion of this topic took place in these threads here

Air Car, powered by compressed air, to begin production soon

Compressed Air Engine


The discussion here seems to have deteriorated to ad hominums and jokes -- without having any understanding of the science or technology underlying the air car -- remember, the concept of enthalpy is poorly understood by most high school graduates and even most undergraduates.

Why are the problems with an air powered car not painfully obvious? This car reveals not a new technology but a basic physics education problem.

[metalman]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

Why are the problems with an air powered car not painfully obvious? This car reveals not a new technology but a basic physics education problem.

i shall pray for a car that does 0 - 60 in 2 days and runs on farts.

how ridiculous. takes energy to compress air... plus compressed air engines can't produce much torque.

i mean... look at this thing...




air powered yugo... a slow motion prius is a ******* rocket ship next to this bullshit piece of crap. who wants one?

you'd sell 1000 ten yr old corollas for each one of these.

metalman rates the air car: 3

metalman rating system:
1 stupid
2 wow, incredibly stupid
3 super duper stupid
4 sweet jesus, i can't believe how stupid that is
5 blow my brains out stupid

[Rajiv]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

You have to realize that in a compressed air car, the energy is not stored in the compressed air -- the compressed air acts as a medium to extract energy from the surrounding air. During compression, energy is used to compress the air and heat the surrounding air -- most of the work is done in heating the air -- and the surrounding air is the reservoir of energy that is tapped when the air expands again.

Those are the fundamentals of "enthalpy" -- This is the main reason that a compressed air car can and does work! It just needs a good heat exchanger!

See also Engineair’s Ultra-Efficient Rotary Compressed-Air Motor

[Rajiv]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

metalman rating system:
1 stupid
2 wow, incredibly stupid
3 super duper stupid
4 sweet jesus, i can't believe how stupid that is
5 blow my brains out stupid

Rajiv rates the above comment at a level of 4 on the above scale and extremely ignorant and arrogant to boot!

[metalman]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

Rajiv rates the above comment at a level of 4 on the above scale and extremely ignorant and arrogant to boot!

rajiv, all respect, but why aren't we all driving around in air cars now?

for the same reason we're not flying around with jetpacks strapped to our backs.


the 'energy' is in the air? really?

get me a straw and i'll suck it up and live forever!

[Munger]

Re: French Air-powered Car To Trials

Why are the problems with an air powered car not painfully obvious? This car reveals not a new technology but a basic physics education problem.

Air compressed to a liquid state has about 1/100th the amount of energy as gasoline if released at atmospheric pressure. So, the 46 gallon tank of air equals about 1/2 a gallon of gas. Not going to get you 136 miles unless you are going seriously downhill.

Let's say the air engine is 100% efficient (impossible) and the gas engine is about 20% efficient (about average). The gasoline is still going to get the vehicle 20 times farther. And these guys are using compressed air, not liquified air. Several orders of magnitude difference.

A detailed study I found if you care to read it.
http://www.aa.washington.edu/AERP/cr...pers/sae98.pdf

relevant quote:

The available energy density [of compressed air] is so low that, even with an ideal isothermal expansion engine, there is not sufficient volume onboard conventional automobiles to provide comparable driving range. Liquefaction of air increases its energy density by several orders of magnitude, resulting in a much more compact energy storage system than that required for compressed air, even when the volume of the accompanying heat exchanger equipment is included.