compressed air car
Created February 22, 2005, at 10:54 am by Anonymous
i guess we're getting closer to this one. recall word of it was posted here a few months back. now in the LA Times, 2-22-2005.
this opens up various methods to get cars moving. gas, electric, mechanical, etc.
BEHIND THE WHEEL
A Little Engine That Could Make Gasoline Obsolete
• Pollution-free vehicle is powered by compressed air. Critics say it has had trouble reaching its range projections.
By Dan Weikel, Times Staff Writer 2-22-2005
You could say that Guy Negre, a French automotive engineer and former race car designer, is full of hot air. Or at least his latest invention is.
Negre's Luxembourg-based company, Moteur Developpment International, is developing a line of cars, vans and pickups powered exclusively by compressed air. There's no gasoline, no costly service schedules and no polluting exhaust.
The prototype vehicles are so clean, the company says, that the air coming out of them is often cleaner than when it goes in.
"This represents something truly revolutionary in the automobile industry," said Shiva Vencat, the company's representative in the United States. "We are talking about changing the way we make cars, how we buy cars, and, more importantly, we are talking about a clean car."
MDI claims that its air-powered automobiles will eventually render the internal combustion engine "as obsolete as the black-and-white television."
The company plans to produce vans, family sedans, taxis, small trucks and three-passenger runabouts called the MiniCat.
All are prototypes. Their bodies are made of aluminum tubing, fiberglass and injected foam. Prices are expected to range from less than $10,000 for the MiniCat to $16,000 for a six-seat sedan called the CitiCat.
These are no ordinary cars. Power comes from fresh air stored in reinforced carbon-fiber tanks beneath the chassis. Air is compressed to 4,500 pounds per square inch — about 150 times the pressure of the typical car tire. The air is fed into four cylinders where it expands, driving specially designed pistons. About 25 horsepower is generated.
Though technical problems are being worked out, company officials say the car is capable of 70 mph and a 120-mile range under normal city conditions, performance that is comparable to electric cars.
Critics say the car has had trouble living up to its range projections. But company officials say they are trying to overcome that by warming the stored air.
Recharging the onboard tanks takes about four hours using the car's small compressor, which can be plugged into any wall outlet. Gas stations equipped with special air pumps can replenish the tanks in about three minutes. Company officials say the oil only needs to be changed every 31,000 miles.
The idea of using compressed air isn't new. Writer Jules Verne predicted in the 1860s that the technology would be used to power cars in Paris by the late 20th century. Some primitive engines date to the early 1900s, and compressed air has been used for years to start race cars.
Negre, who designed engines for Formula One cars, founded MDI in 1991 to further develop compressed-air technology. The company's factory is in Nice, France, and employs about 40.
MDI hopes to raise money by selling hundreds of franchises to investors who will be licensed to produce and sell air cars regionally. Only the Nice plant will remain under direct MDI control.
At least 40 franchises have been sold in France, Spain, South Africa and New Zealand, company officials say. The money has helped develop prototypes, but it has not been enough to build production models — something that has been delayed several times.
Vencat says the company has been trying to sell licenses in the United States, but MDI has not had any success, though he says there is some interest.
Jean-Pierre Maeder, the chief executive officer of ZevCat, a small company in San Francisco, says he is interested in becoming America's first distributor of air cars.
Maeder, a Swiss native with experience in factory production and alternative car technology, would like a franchise to build and sell MDI vehicles in Northern California. He says he needs about $20 million to do it.
But capital has been hard to come by. A few years ago, Maeder's company made a public offering of 250,000 shares of stock at $2 a share to raise money for an MDI license. There were no takers.
"It's a Catch-22 situation," Maeder said. "Investors want to see the product and drive it. They think it's too good to be true. But there are no production models here yet."
Vencat estimates that the company needs an additional $5 million to $10 million to start producing cars in Nice and to meet vehicle requirements in MDI's franchise areas.
Company officials say they are optimistic the car will sell if they can only get it into production. There is a surging demand, they say, for more eco-friendly transportation, such as electric cars and hybrid vehicles that combine electric motors with internal combustion engines.
"Once we have the cars out there, we have won the battle," Vencat said. "For now, we are just surviving."
it was so nice to read about compresed air car.i would like to make many people know about this and i want to do a technical paper on this topic .i need your guidence for doing that technical paper on compressed air car,so please give me some model papers on compressed air car..it would be very helpful for me. thanking you.
I thought Mexico City bought a bunch of these cars from a French company last year to replace their taxis and reduce smog?
It's not polution free, it just relocates the polution from the tailpipe of the car to the coil and oil burning power plants. Those power plants burn coal and oil to make electricity which powers the air compressor that puts the pressurized air in the car.
As long as all your power plants are very far away from your most heavily poluted areas, the net effect is a more broad distribution of polution rather than having it highly concentrated in a handful of large cities.
Except for places that use wind or solar or nuclear power.
The original article claims "Gas stations equipped with special air pumps can replenish the tanks in about three minutes" (to 4500 psi).
Almost everybody who is familiar with compressing air, such as SCBA or SCUBA users, know the hazards of filling an air tank too fast. It's the same thing that makes a diesel engine's fuel-air mix ignite: Fast compression generates heat. (Can you say "adiabatic"?)
There's got to be some pretty heroic heat-exchangers associated with that fast a compression to that high a pressure. Anything less will set things on fire and melt plastic, among other things.
i gotta believe that having a central energy plant has some economy of scale to not polute as much as a detail gas engine would.
i don't know if i've ever heard what the difference in polution is though.
although somehow i think this would be a great application for a windmill - use the wind, compress air in a tank.
for very high pressure systems, i know designers have used metal tubing rather then a large bottle like a SCUBA tank. a garden hose concept coiled up would hold higher pressure then a SCUBA bottle of the same volume.
see ya
I INVENTED A CAR THAT RUNS OFF AIR
BUT YOU DONT NEED TO CHARGE THE
CAR THE CAR RUNS OFF IT SELF
I CAME UP WIYH THIS IDEA IN
1998
IF YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR CARS BETTER
GIVE ME A E-MAIL
MY CAR IS THE BEST WAY TO GO
YOUR CAR IS GOOD TO BUT ITS TO MUCH
WORK FOR ME.
I've got 4 words for you JD:
"Conservation of energy law"
Have fun with your flintstones car though. My sister's little kid has one too.
forget trying photosmith - my old aunt never understood WHY we couldn't *just* put little windmills all over cars to take that wind energy & use it!
she even wrote letters to ALL of the big three manufacturers!
i wish i kept a copy of at least one of them. the writers back then answering her sure were good at diplomatic ways of telling my aunt she didn't have a clew!
see ya
TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND ME BETTER
I INVENTED A CAR THAT RUNS ON COMPRESSED
AIR BUT THE WAY I DESIGNED IT YOU WILL
NEVER NEED TO FILL THE TANK BY HAND
BE FOR THE CAR IS SOLD THE TANK WILL BE
FILD TO GET THE CAR STARTED
AFTER THAT THE CAR FILLES IT SELF UP AS YOU
DRIVE
NO MORE PAYING FOR GAS
NO EXTRA AIR CAN'S TO BUY
JUST DRIVE THE CAR YOU PAYED FOR
IF YOU THINK THIS IS A JOKE SO BE IT
THE NOWHOW IS HERE
THANK YOU
JD
you mean no energy in, but it provides energy out?
what's the method of getting more compressed air into the car?
there HAS to be some energy input.
does the passenger peddle?
see ya
JD is just another internet scam artist who wants to sucker people into sending him a few hundred bucks for the blueprints to his magic car, which will be like every other perpetual motion machine: fake. There's been people making money off selling such blueprints since the 1940's.
Mac Truck has a hybrid design for their big diesel trucks they are working on. It compresses air with the airbrakes into a storage tank. When the truck starts to accelerate, the engine runs on air until the air runs out, then it runs on diesel fuel. Economy gains for trucks will probably be a relatively small percentage, because trucks spend alot of time cruising on highways, but the dollar savings still will be substantial. For many trucking companies, fuel is the second highest cost after labor.
although trucks don't "stop" much on their cross country trips, hills can be long & the suplemental assistance from a hybrid system can be very useful.
there is a value to hybrid trucks.
see ya
CNN, March 30, 2005: Car that runs on compressed air
A Korean company has created a car engine that runs on air.
The engine, which powers a pneumatic-hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), works alongside an electric motor to create the power source
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/03/30/spark.air.car/
What is so unreasonable about a car running on hot air...................it seems to work well with government.
Is it compresed air a cheaper way to store energy than hidrogen?.
"cheaper" can mean alot of things.
compressed air might be less hazardous then hydrogen.
~ but hydrogen might have better range or miles per cubic inch stored.
i suspect hydrogen would have more bang per volume but compressed air could be more widely attainable.
safety might be easier with compressed air, but we already have explosive gasoline that we know how to deal with.
see ya
hello people i have no knowledge of air driven engines or cars but i am very interested . if it is at all possible ,could you just direct me to a blueprint or something to download?
this would be a good project for bill gates has the french company contacted him for funding?
this is way closer to reality than hydrogen. There is already an electic infrastructure that almost everyone can access. (at night while demand is down). I only know of 1 hydrogen station in southern california.
Comments that this only relocates the pollution to power plants, while absolutely true, are just as true for all electic vehicles. The electricity can be made with green solar, hydro and wind however. Fossil fuel never can be made from renewable energy and most Hybrids sold today are 100% powered by fossil fuel. Sorry but them's the facts.
Did I mention that hydrogen production also requires electricity for electolisis?
I hope they can overcome the range issues with the air car. Range has been the death knell for most alternative vehicles
Actually it's not quite true that "fossil" fuel can never be made from renewable energy - "fossil" fuel can be replaced by renewable energy fuel in the form of biodiesel. This is made from vegetable oil such as canola/rapeseed with a little ethanol.
This turns out to be a reasonably efficient way to store solar energy for transport use. It is also cleaner as the fuel is essentially pure hydrocarbon.
what about taking the flinstone idea and fusing it with the hydrogen idea. the peddling will power the electrolysis until the motor can get going. Like a moped?
or using all the energy waves given off by radioactive material. dumbing the energy down into usable current.COPYRIGHT 2005
I have read articles in which part of the compressed air system offered refueling stations that used barges set on rivers which had long 'tubes' underneath in the water. The power of the flowing water compressed the air.
I would gladly sign over $5,000 as a shareholder to an open, monitored system that would develop such environmentally better energy options. I suspect most people would also be willing to risk a relatively small portion of their funds. Together this could easily reach the hundreds of millions and could give the boost needed to make compressed air vehicles a viable market presence.
The beauty with compressed air is that it can be generated directly from a windmill, no need to turn into electricity and then back again, so therefore lower losses.
in a pich i guess one could add a tire pump?
~ have your passenger pump while sitting there & help pay for his lift...
actually there are many ways to compress air, so it would surely be a *green* car!
see ya
I Think you are all lookin at it the wrong way remember the earth was flat once .
Very good idea!
This engin will work very well.
The only think wrong with it
ordinary people will never get it
because the gouvernement will stop it
before it reached our country.
Why!
Because the gouvernement and the oil
company work together in order to
pollute our planet, to make more money.
I'm interested in getting enough info together to see if it is feaseable to build a backyard hybrid as was done back in the 70's BUT using a diesel engine to run a compressor and a compressed air engine instead of an electric motor. Any ideas out there as plans or info that will actually translate into knowlege about construction? On the barge river thing. A friend of mine proposed using barges that would generated stored hydogen via electolisis by using the motion of the waves. sounds possible to me, tho compressed air woudl make more sense. also there is no need to charge the tanks rapidly if the tanks were interchangeable , out with the empty in with the full etc. I want one of those perpetual motion cars tho
Well seems like an almost feasable idea to me, the energy going in is the power that makes the compressor run then it's all potential energy until it's run through the turbine axels or whatever. or it could be a pumped circut where the compressed air would be pumped past the contact points causing the wheels to turn, then it would be diverted back into the tank or to power a small compressor. This idea could be used well with hydrogen, the hydrogen would run a compressor while the air would run the car.
In Regards to JD's Air Car design, I have a friend in Mexico that converted his Gas Car into a Air car as well. He drove it from San Luis Potosi mexico to Laredo, Mexico. My brother and myself saw it and we were amazed. The air exhaust is clean and cold. He uses that cold air for cool air inside the vehicle. He added a small air compressor to the side of the engine where his Air Conditioning unit used to be. That is where he mounted a wheel driven air compressor. I believe it was from a late 1970's Volvo. He just simply made a bracket to mount it and be powered by the belt that used to run on the air compressor. The air compressor puts the air back into the 2 air tanks. He does use air input pressure regulators so that the air does not go in so quickly, but the tanks remain filled, even at high rates of speed. His car has no fuel tank or fuel gages or anything that has to do with the fuel system. No spark plugs. No coil or distributor cap or rotor. No AC. He took out the radiator and radiator water and coolant. He left the Transmission system in place and left the electrical fan in place as well for his transmission system. The Alternator works fine. His headlights work and everything. He drove this thing close to 500 miles and made it back to San Luis without any problems. One pointer: I noticed he installed a small fuel filter to keep moisture residue from entering his air tanks. Sometimes, when you use air compressors in gas stations, you will see water deposits coming out. In mexico these water deposits are not clean. sometimes they are brown or dark grey in clarity. Sometimes these deposits will rust out the inside of the tanks. I was impressed by it and I am looking forward to making one of my own. By the way, his car was a 4 cylinder Datsun. Early 90's model. There will be many naysayers out there that will not believe that this is possible, but it is. My father in law used to work in a air base and ran many air powered engines that were used to keep pneumatic tools running. Kept them running at 60 psi and the size of the pistons were about 12 inches in diameter. enormus engines. How is that possible??? Go figure people. Ever wonder how steam powered trains ever got to move tons and tons and tons of material. Well, before the steam powered trains were ever made... there were the 'Nay-Sayers". Never thought we would ever go to the moon either. There were also the nay-sayers. Now wev'e been to Mars. What do you think?? I think we can get there more effectively using a compressed air engine.... from the moon.
ACG
Space is a vaacum. Explain that.
You know that big tank NASA uses on the Space Shuttle Liftoffs? We can use one of those. Or two. Heavy items in space are weightless... so there is no need to doubt that heavy objects can't be moved in space with something as simple as a small air tank or held by your very own hands.
What are you talking about we never did go to the moon???
Mr. Smog: There is an amusingly ignorant conspiracy theory that the United States moon landings didn't actually happen - they were all Hollywood special effects, filmed right here on the earth (which all right-thinking people know is flat).
Just a note. There are now 10,000 psi carbon tanks for sale that can charge in 4 minuets and do so often often with a life of 20 years. I don't see why they dont start making gocarts and golf-carts to get people interested in the idea. A 10,000 psi scba tank (special order from sci) would push a golf-cart a very long ways! I supect further than a set of batteries and I dont see batteries lasting 20 years.
Also, 80 percent of the energy put into compression could can be recovered as heat by injecting water mist into an upsidedown compressor just before the compression. The water absorbs all the heat. That hot water could then be used for homes or business as preheat water and save that much more power that would have to be taken from natural gas heaters or electric. Even neater would be to run a super efficient stirling engine to generate electricity form that heat. In a perfect world it could be done in a month or two, but money is all that really matters to anyone..
Hi A C G I would like to learn more about your friend's car if I could ? Sounds like a good idea Thanks Wayne
Hi I'm tom Wilson, i would like to covert my truck, into a Hybrid, but i don't have the knowleged, so what i need is the knowleged, can you send me the information, i need so i ccan change my truck, into a h;ybrid, thank You
I living in panama central america and i have real interest compressed air car , please any people cuold help me to get more especific information to cenvert one gasoline engine vehicle to air compressed engine vehicle
I need to change my engine?
i want to convert a disele engine into a air hybrid car engine how i can do this
This is all very interesting, but you are all quite mad, mad I tell you. We will all soon be dead due to global climate change, so inventing your little "air cars" will not serve you much purpose. Why not forget about it and just get on with your pathetic little lives, working and slaving for the benevolent multi-national corporations that so kindly provide you with the means to afford to buy a nice car and the petrol to go in it. Forget about fruitlessly trying to "think outside the square". That is for weirdos and creeps. Get back to work you lot.
Oh, and there is an Australian company who will release a production run compressed air car late next year. 3 carbon-firbe tanks, purpose built high-strength aluminium chassis and engine, 200klm range, 80kph top speed, 1 hour to refill by plugging into any power socket for about $2 worth of electricity. They are also working on a hybrid which will do 4000klms on one refill and travel at 100kph+. Damn fools.
Well i'm not really qualified to say this but can't you combine hydrogen power and compressed gas power. You could compress the hydrogen to a high pressure then use it to power a compressed gas engine, then you could take the now uncompressed hydrogen and use it to power a internal combustion engine.
If you want to get hydrogen from water at home can't you make a hydrogen generator, you could get a cistern from a toilet so that the water level was always the same and then put two electrodes in it, if you then got a plastic beaker and put it over the electrode which the hydrogen gas comes of upside down you could then drill a hole in the bottem of the beaker. Next you could get some tubing that fits snuggly into the drilled hole and feed it to a compressor and then put a float switch inside the beaker so that the compressor turned on and off when neccisary.
If you wanted you could then power it using solar power, wind etc. . You may even get power to the elctrodes from a solar panel or wid turbine then power the commpressor off a simple mechanicle turbine instead of kinetic to electrical to kinetic energy it would simply be kinetic to kinetic energy. though you would then have to put of some sort of electronic clutch between the turbine and the compressor then connect that to the float switch.
probably not explained it well at all but i hope you get the basic idea.
What i want to know is:
1) Does the same quantity of hydrogen take up the same space as the same quantity of air at the same pressure?
2) Will it acctually work?
3) If parts don't work which one's and why?
1. anything that can be plugged into a three pronged electrical outlet can be plugged into a cigarette lighter or other device that could at the same time be generating power for multiple batteries in series, thereby generating heat through devices (i.e. Coils) to reheat the air for recharging the air canister.
2. Revolving canisters that provide thrust while 2 actually work. 2 or 4 or 6 or 8 etc. would stay in a state of recharging. One set drains its supply rotates the next pair in, the drained set goes into stasis to recharge, the more canisters the better the longevity of the power source, and not necessarily weight or size with all sorts of new combination metals out there and methods to build them. Simple air canisters with a trust valve which could easily become the refill regulators. It should work. Simple and easy to use. Somebody try it with more expertise than me
Respected Sir,
I am a student Of Mechanical Engineering.I am very much interested in this topic.I want to make a paper presentation on it.
Will you please help me by sending some information on its working.
Thanking you.
hello,i need some information about compressed air car.
I heard somewhere that Mr.Negre got put in jail for something.I do know that if the french want to snub the world over this french bashing they could produce the car.I also heard that MDI made a aircar that got 37 miles on a full tank?So it is feasable?
this is suresh.c.i am a student of mechanical engineering.i wanted to take up the compressed air engine as my project.can u please help me more information.
one major drawback of a pneumatic engine is that are compressors and pneumatic engines are highly ineeficient, when your compressing the air, you produce heat, that is energy lost, etc. The car may run cleanly but it is actually less efficent than many gas powered cars, except it is using energy from another location, so it would actually produce more pollution, just in a different place.
If you could say that it the hybrid car was patented on one day, what would that day be? And what do you think about Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars?
Chase, the hybrid car concept is over a century old - see the Hybrid History web page here at http://www.hybridcars.com/history.html. Ferdinand Porsche built a hybrid - see the 1898 entry. See http://www.chiangmai-mail.com/162/auto.shtml for a more complete discussion of Porsche's hundred-year-old hybrids.
Hydrogen-fuelled automobiles are somewhere between science fiction and crude prototype. If nothing else, hydrogen "gas stations" are few and far between. For a short discussion on hydrogen-fuelled city buses, see http://www.actransit.org/news/articledetail.wu?articleid=2c567bc7.
A C G:
Do you have an email address I could use to ask you a few questions? Thanks, Rod
These are my main objections against the MDI concept. It looks promising only if one does not make a few calculation, as I did.
1) Filling station for air tanks.
Some sources mention a filling time at a compressor station of 2, other 3 minutes. Compressing 90000 liters of air in such a short time without pressure buffer containers (at higher pressure than 300 bars) would need a compressors with 630 resp. 945 kW motor. These compressors are highly sophisticated machinery with total noise guard, air dryer and possibly oilless air discharge (to prevent clogging of lines thru freezeup, caused by the Joule Thomson effect). They need specialized servicing and maintainance and are not only very costly in installation but also in operation. Therefore, it would be wrong to calculate the costs of elecrical power alone.
If you are interested, you can find compressors for such pressures here:
www.bauer-kompressoren.de
2) "Home filling".
Some sources mention that one can fill the tanks in 4,5 hours by just plugging the car to an electric outlet in ones garage. The compressor would be part of the car engine. This is nonsense of course, because that would not only need a high pressure compressor with 3 or better 4 stages with intercoolers, but also a driver with 6,5 kW in the car! In addition of 300 liters of bottle volume. By the way, I designed such compressors myself and know what I am talking about.
3) Size of pressure bottles.
If I understood right, there are 3 bottles horizontally situated under the drivers seat. With a possible length of approx 1,6 meters, the diameter of one 100 liter bottle would be appprox. 300 mm. This would mean that the bottles would have to be mounted very low, close to road surface. This could be hardly accepted by the authorities (to dangerous when driving over obstacles on the road).
4) Last but not least.
The energy stored in the bottles would be about 52 MJ. 1 Liter of gasoline has 31 MJ!!
Air-Electric Cars are the future!
Ultimately, the electric will derive from wind, or solar energy, with the solar 'paneling' incorporated as a body surface!
I believe the best electric development to be "Wavecrests" "All Wheel" motor- generator system, and it should be combined with a pneumatic system similar to that of the French "MDI", or the Korean "PHEV".
Ergo: the perfect 'GREEN CAR'.
In the first place, all of these people posting remarks need to learn to spell. Hydrogen is not "hidrogen." Many other egregious spelling examples in the posts.
I always thought the air was generated by a ram air turbine, compressed, then the gearing did the work. I guess i was wrong. At any rate, the french are a very intelligent people, and have always been on the cutting edge in many areas. VIVE LA FRANCE! For example, this month, the biggest passenger jet in the world, made by Airbus, is making it's debut trip. holds up to 500 passengers. Looks like the 747 just lost the lead.
with pneumatics a car can be saved from potholes, the pneumatic system could make it so that the car would have a kind of bounce system to prevent the hard smack when going over the pothole
Educate yourselves: read Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers"
Step one is to get the grid off Co2 emmission.
Denmark is very much pwered by wind. Hence NO POLLUTANTS from a compressed air vehicle.
Tasmania is hydro powered, and even wind powered, including a successful export of its wind tower supply.
Grid can be pollutant free, and NOW in some areas.
Wow, some people can be so quick to condemn, and to give up. Lets take the challenge!
Oh and, re: spelling, lets not exclude the dyslexic and non english speakers from discussion!
This concept works exactly like those AIR HOGS Air powered airplane toys, if you've ever seen them. A child pumps the air in on a seperate "dock," then spins the propeller (which gets a tiny piston to reciprocate within a cylinder that turns the propeller), and then throws it. The airplane toy flies for about a minute, until the air runs out and it lands (or crashes). Then the child just pumps air into it again, and can keep going. I know this because I used to fly these things when I was a kid, and I loved them.
If this technology sound interesting, you might want to stop buy your nearest "TOYS R US" or similar, and take a look at one of these toys.
Drive a Toyota hybrid car and you know what the future will look like.
Air does not have the necessary energy density.
fly wheel power by compress air to run car?
MY FATHER WAS BUILDING ELECTRIC CARS IN THE 60'S BUT GAS WAS .25 A GALLON NO INTEREST, I HAVE BEEN INTERESTED IN COMPRESSED AIR AS A ENERGY SOARCE FOR CHARGING, AND HAVE BEEN EXPERIMENTING ON A SYSTEM USING COMPRESSED AIR GENERATING AC-DC WHICH CAN FEED ITSELF,IT CAN BE USED FOR HOME POWER PLANTS AS WELL AS DRIVE A VEHICLE. ANYONE EXPERIMENTING LET ME KNOW. THANKS
F. Sobkow, what energy source are you using to compress the air that you use to generate AC/DC? Are you using a piston-type compresseor or a turbine-type compresser? And are you using the compressed air to drive a piston or turbine device to rotate your AC/DC generator?
the unit used a turbine-style power plant compressed air contolled.
F. Sobkow, your response "the unit used a turbine-style power plant compressed air contolled." does not tell us anything. Is your "turbine-style power plant" compressing the air or is it being driven by compressed air? If your "turbine-style power plant" is compressing the air, what is is the source of energy or fuel for the turbine? If your "turbine-style power plant" is driven by compressed air, what is the energy source for compressing the air?
Or are you trying to tell us that your device compresses the air, and uses the compressed air to spin a turbine, and uses the turbine to generate electricity, and uses the electricity to compress the air? Congratulations - you've just invented a perpetual motion machine! Don't you know those things are illegal?
yes that would be nice, but as we all know it takes energy to make energy. without disclosing my total workings to the world, yes it uses a prefilled compressed cylnder to start the turbine generator which is also switched to a compressor. but unless you are in outerspace where there is no gravity or friction it does have its limitations. it does generate more than consumes and the range is still in the works.
F. Sobkow, how much energy is used to pressurize / fill your "prefilled compressed cylnder"? Are you including that amount of energy in your energy budget?
So you claim your device "does generate more (energy) than (it) consumes" - right? That certainly sounds like a perpetual motion machine. My only question is are you just scamming yourself, or are you trying to scam others?
the only reason i responded to this site is to see if anyone else is working along this line, i am not going to devulge any specifics to you or anyone else,if anyone is trying to scam its you, why don"t you set a patent web site maybe someone will even pay you to boot.
F. Sobkow, patent attorneys and other scam artists who prey on inventors _love_ folks like you, who think they have invented a device that "does generate more (energy) than (it) consumes." They'll take all the money you can throw at them, and after all the money is gone, they may tell you that the laws of physics prohibit perpetual motion machines. See, for instance, the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_machines.
thank you for your opinion but if it wasn't for the ignorance of skeptics most inventors would lack the drive to carry on,since this is not a perpetual motion machine and you have no idea what it is you should have the common courtesy to have all the facts before you render a slanderous opion####
F. Sobkow, are you now claiming that your device "does NOT generate more (energy) than (it) consumes"? If that's true, then I withdraw my opinion that it's a perpetual motion machine.
I don’t see why everyone is such a skeptic about the air car concepts – MDI of France seems to have designed an air engine but fails to come up with the money needed to mass produce and “license” their cars – safety test them and get permission to market (something like this is killing them and stopping them from marketing the “cars” or they have just gone underground with their current investors as they don’t seem to be talking press much or making any moves that people can “see” at the moment – perhaps MDI has a plan that they are not willing to announce to the public – that seems smart considering their early patents on this technology – I’ve seen other engine designs that make more torque and sense to me than MDI’s to be honest and as many have suggested compressed air and existing drive trains could possibly also be used to convert existing “internal combustion engines” over to “compressed air engines” – but, most consumers don’t want patch up jury rigged stuff or cars that look like model-T’s that are not crash tested and rated for our highways against the other cars that are on the market (that seems to be GM’s advantage over time with their Hydrogen cars). I think MDI’s secrecy about what they are doing at the moment is deeper than funding issues for a production model as reportedly they have 60 investors of the needed 400 that can or have put up $250,000.00 initial investment for a “license”… or should I say $150,000,000.00 to back initial production of the first MDI air cars. It seems that they should be able to produce at least one line of production with that much money behind them! The Korean company Enerine http://www.energine.com now seem to have “taken” the “compressed air engine” design idea and other hybrid technology currently on the market to come up with their own Hybrid air power engine car with electric hybrid motors that is more modern looking e.g. the “small economy car body” that improves speed and performance to basically match the Toyota Preis “without the gasoline” – What I want to know is if modern carbon tanks can store 10,000 psi and they can be refilled in 3-4 minutes and used for 20 years is MDI only using 4500 psi because it is safer in a crash than 10,000 psi? What I see is that even 4500 psi is really not needed if a “smaller” engine can produce enough electrical power to sustain a car for prolonged travel on compressed air and that with the newer hydraulic kinetic energy that runs a compressor and recharges the tanks that charge the batteries. It seems that MDI is actually looking more at not using batteries and relying more on the compressed air only which reduces the costs dramatically as the seem to be targeting the $10,000.00 - $18,000.00 realm for one of their “air cars” such as the MiniCAT and CityCAT models. Now enters GM with the new “hydrogen” car and over 1 billion in research in that prototype speculating it will be 5-10 years before we will be able to purchase there Hydrogen cars and fill them up at the local GAS station. However – the beauty of the “compressed air hybrid” is this… Windmills can store compressed air without the photosynthesis and without the loss of power to create and change it from one form of stored energy to another. Compressed air can come from many sources commonly available such as small compressors powered by electricity, kinetic. My research on hybrids suggests that the best design is really the new battery technology with electric motors – possibly solar cells melded into the body of the car to recharge the batteries “when the sun shines” in combination with other kinetic energy devices and hydraulic devices to recharge the “compressed air” tanks more of a potential motion machine that uses a combination of existing technology. Seems to me that the best design would be a car that gives everyone what they need with the least amount of cost taking advantage of all the technology. Maybe these companies GM, MDI, Enerine, etc… should God forbid work together or as I have seen it been suggested get Mr. Gates to help them fund the project to get something done that takes the pollution out of our air and solves the need for everyone. The next step would be to employ people in all the various Countries to share the work, wealth and advantages of this technology.
Kevin
Maybe air compressors could be a could way to build hybrids, since in this case too one could store the energy used to slow down by refillign the tanks. A tank with compressed air is fairly light, a compressor drivven by one of the driveshafts of the car should technically also be relatively simple. Ist there anyone who has thought of that as aftermarket systems that could be installed on conventional cars? Possibly such asystem could then be used for stop and go traffic where most of the pollution occurs
Diesel Driver,
There have been discussions of Compressed Air Hybrids, in fact, I understand that the US Postal Service has just ordered as small fleet of 'hydraulic hybrids' which, I believe that these actually use compressed air to store energy just as you've described. They use a normal Hydraulic drive system but use engine braking to push the hydraulic fluid into an accumulator where it is stored in the form of compressed air. As we all recall, one can't compress a liquid so the energy storage must be using air.
This may have some merit to make Internal Combustion Engines (ICE's) more efficient.
Using compressed air alone does not provide much energy storage capability compared with batteries, gasoline, or pretty much any other common energy storage technique. Therefore, a pure compressed air car wouldn't get much range.
Compressed air cars don't appear meet my interests in hybrids electric vehicles which is their simplicity (fewer moving parts) and their ultimate ability to become plug-in vehicles which, in addition to gasoline and ethanol, can make use of any form of energy that can put energy onto the electrical grid.
i would like to see a compressed air riding lawn mower. That would allow someone to work out the kinks in the technology - if it is viable.
Way to go Paul. Compressed air car is nothing new. Years ago a guy at work told me of a person in PA. that had a car that ran on compressed air but couldn't find a car company that would buy his plans. He eventually was selling blueprints to the public. As far as perpetual motion this was not the case as his was started with compressed tank of air then refilled as the car had a compresser in the drivetrain.
I seem to remember a weekly science reader artical in grade school, talking about using regenerative braking to compress air for use in buses. When stopping at a bus stop it would compress air into cylinders and then use the compressed air to accelerate back up to speed. I think it was in Austrailia. That must've been around the early 70' (1970's thank you!)
THIS IS JD
I WANT TO TELL ALL OF YOU HOW TO BILD A AIR CAR. I WILL MAKE A DEAL AND TELL ALL .IF
HYBRID MAKES ME AN OFFER
AND TO HELP SOME OF YOU .
WITH MY CAR . YOU DONT NEED TO CHANGE TANKS OR RE FILL. IT FILLS IT SELF AS YOU DRIVE. THINK ABOUT IT.
JD, we "thought about it" in March 2005, the last time you made this claim (in this thread - look above) and we all thought the same thing: It's bogus. How many miles have you driven your air car since March 2005, and what are the statistics? How has it worked for you in the last year and a half?
ITS NOT A JOKE.
I WILL GIVE YOU THIS ONE.
TAKE 2 ALTNATERS SET THEM UP TO WHERE
THERE IS ONE ON EACH SIDE OF THE HYBRID
AND LET THE ROTASHON OF THE WEEL CHARGE
YOUR BATTERY. NO STOPS TO RE CHARGE
IT CHARGES AS YOU GO.
NOW DO YOU WANT TO DEAL.
THE GUY IN FRANCE HAS GOT THE AIR CAR GOING
I KNOW HOW TO BILD ONE .THE U.S. IS MISSING OUT BECUSE YOU ALL THINK ITS A JOKE.
ITS NOT HARD TO DO I JUST WANT TO BE A PART OF IT . I DONT WANT TO SCAME ANYONE.
I JUST WANT PEPOLE TO HAVE A CHANCE TO TRY IT . AND SAVE SOME MONEY.
JD, if you know how to build one, go ahead and build one. You've had a year and a half since the last time you told us about this bogus perpetual motion concept. What have you done since March 2005? What have you actually built? What do you have to show us?
LET ME KNOW HOW TO GET IN TUCH WITH YOU AND I WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING
JD: Tell me everything -
Just for the record, JD hasn't replied to me yet. Possibly his spell-checker stalled...
Would you every trust someone who thinks attaching alternators to the wheels will generate more power than what is being used?! I drive an EV and hear this all the time and have to go through high-school-level physics to wrap these dummies heads around it: you can only spin an alternator when *it's not under load*! Similar lack of knowledge of energy conservation (remember Newton?) and how much you can get from a few tanks of compressed air has people who also ignore how much energy needs to be used just to compress that air. No wonder just about every other country has smarter students - their elementary school kids can out-think most of our adults!
This is for jd. This is the best idea that has come down the pike yet! I have been interested since I heard an interview on KDKA radio in the 70's.
Any info you could give me would be greatly apriciated. DG
yes using alternators on braking is an old concept,chrysler used it on on jeep yj,s in the 70,s i belieive,ford and gm were also experimenting around the same time. the big obstacle is still it takes energy to make energy,unless you can produce more than you are using its useless. There are certain conditions like braking or backdraft windtunnel effect were you can utilize wasted energy to your advantage,it does help but is not earthshattering . Strangly enough a lot of inventions were not discovered by big name scientific minds but an ordenary joe tinkering in his shop,its just the big names that took the credit,so keep on trying and ignore the critics,they are the ones that give you the drive to carry on because they couldn't invent anything anyway. Frank M.
Its interesting... I also believe the goverment and oil company's control a large portion of why we do not see more build up of idea's like this. You would surely think with all the brains out there and the funding if were available they could come up with something this day in age that would make oil completly obsolete. It just comes down to money... If you told everyone in the world that they had a year to stop using gas cars and come up with a better way or the world would say... blow up then you must surely believe they would take on the task and complete it. The PROBLEM is money and who controls it and the idea of time. Few people care about a problem that will surely not effect their life time, so as long as they escape this world before any major problem would arise they feel fine to do as they have always done. So unless somebody incredibly rich or people unite to ever fix the problem it will never be fixed until it is to late or things become incredibly bad to the point of no repair for our planet.
A final thought... Momentum could be used as a source of power. I'm not incredibly smart but I can put some theory into it. Why could the wheels of a car which are already being forced to spin not become some form of a power source such as a turbine to produce a power for the car. Why cant it be one big circle of power. The wheels spin which produces the power needed to project the car forwards? You would surely still need a battle ground of batteries to help out. Though i'm not completly sure of the ins and outs of it all. It seems plossible that this could help some of the potential problems of were the energy comes from with out distorting the power of accelerating the car if the correct technology was used.
JSM: Momentum _is_ used as a source of power - that's one of the ways the Prius and Honda Civic Hybrids and other hybrids re-charge their batteries: It's called regenerative braking.
But one of the things that you and JD and some others here don't seem to understand is that you can't get something for nothing. It takes energy to get a car up to speed, and you can recover _some_ of that energy when you slow a car down. But you can't recover _all_ of the energy that it took to get the car up to speed, and you certainly can't get _more_ energy out of slowing a car down than it took to get it up to speed. It's against the law.
It's been over a month, and JD still hasn't gotten back to me. (see above)
ok--anyone ever consider that an older vw diesel pickup can get approx. 50 mpg??--That is even under loads of acceloration--imagine that diesel engine mounted in the back of the pickup (for testing only) running a compressor and filling tanks at a low rpm and constant speed. Install an air motor in the engine compartment linked to the existing transmission. the load and acceloration demands would be on the stored compressed air. the diesel engine only runs when the volume is low and again at lower rpm and high efficiency. i belive we could get 75 to 80 mpg--any comments??
I think this is called Hybrid technology. But the "classic" MDI car is a mono energy.
I am still curious to know why Mr Negre is not selling more compressed air cars. In 2000 he had already 200 customers on his waiting list. Was the safety a problem? I don't think so. His car in running on a pressure of 300 bars. This is quite high but GM uses 700 bars on their hydrogen car. (The Chevrolet Sequel has 3 cylinders holding 4.2 kg of hydrogen at 700 bars for its fuel cells).
For your information, here are the specs. I think this is for the City-CAT's model . I added an english translation including units equivalents.
· Véhicule mono-énergie air - cylindrée: 566 cm3
(223 cu. in. air engine, 4-cyl, laying flat, air only)
.
· Puissance maxi : 25 CV CEE (18 kW CEE) à 3500 tr/min
(max. power: 25 hp @ 3500 rpm)
.
· Couple maxi : 6,3 kg.m CEE (61,7 N.m CEE) à 800 - 3000 tr/mn
(max torque:45.5 ft-lb from 800 to 3000 rpm)
.
· Vitesse maxi :110 km/h
(max speed: 68 mph)
.
· Autonomie en cycle urbain: environ 10 heures soit 200 km
(range for city driving: 125 miles or about 10 hrs)
.
· Autonomie à 60 km/h : 240 km
(range at 40 mph: 150 miles)
.
· Coût d'utilisation : 5 francs pour 100 km compresseur embarqué
(cost, using the onboard compressor: 25¢ for 60 miles)
.
· Puissance électrique de charge 5 kVA soit 5,5 kW
(charging power requied: 5,5 kw)
.
· Poids: environ 700 kg
(weight: 1500 pounds)
.
· Modèles: taxi, pick-up, monospace familial, fourgonnette
· Charge utile: 450kg de marchandises ou 4 personnes + chauffeur
(can carry 1000 pounds or 4 passengers plus driver)
.
· Prix moyen: 62'000 FHT
(Mean price based on 4 different models: aprx 15000$ before tax)
TAKEN FROM:
.
A. VE Axel Vicq - 51, avenue de la République F- 17210 Montlieu la Garde
Tél.:05 46 04 3 392, Fax: 05 46 01 56 85, E-mail: ave.media@ wanadoo.fr
I noticed that specs seem to change from one source to another.
.
If you read french you can check for yourself in Science et Vie no, 969, June 98, page 130, article "Le moteur zero pollution" by Catherine Cousin or in the dayly LaPresse (Montreal) October 18, 2004, L'Auto, page 7 , article "Roulez a l'air comprime" by Rene Fagnan.
.
By the way, MDI has overcome the lack of efficiency of air engines by alowing air to expand differently. For more details you can check us pat. no 6,334,435 B1 issued jan. 1 2002 at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/
Denis
The possibility of using compressed air to power vehicles and machinery seems very promising. However, I am curious about how dangerous they might be. For instance, what would happen if a compressed air vehicle gets into an accident. Can the fuel storage container explode or combust?
Another thing I would like to know is how much energy it takes to produce the compressed air? Don't you need a machine to compress the air first?
I'm not at all suggesting that steam power would be a poor choice. I would just like to know exactly what the energy costs and possible drawbacks are when comparing it to other renewable energy technologies.
Colibri,
You're asking some of the good questions.
The compressed air car is a complete farce.
They conveniently miss or misrepresent several facts whenever the charletans talk about them.
- the fact that energy is required to compress air is often omitted or dismissed. In reality, air compression is highly inefficient because of the heat generated (remember PV=nRT from high school chemistry)
- you're definitely right about the safety issues. It takes a tough container to safely carry enough compressed air to do very much work.
- the issue you missed is how much energy can you carry onboard a car. Compressed air has very low specific energy and energy density (ie you're not going to go very far on a tank of it). I seem to recall that it is slightly better than a metal spring but not much. Batteries and gasoline/air are hundreds of times better (gasoline/air is about 10 times better than batteries). This means you can travel hundreds of times further on a tank of gasoline than a tank of compressed air with the same weight.
Batteries can be charged very efficiently (about 10% loss). Probably the best way to get an understanding about efficiency of an alternative energy/propulsion scheme is to look at how much waste heat is produced. Steam can be a pretty good way to extract the energy from a fuel, however, it's tough to use in a mobile environment (hence diesel locomotives replaced even closed-cycle steam ones)
JD will you contact me? I'm interested.
Hey Everyone, It's Jd The Guy You All Talk About .
I Sent Paul A E-mail Telling All . The Reson I Havent Got On For A Wile . For Some Reason . I Could Not Get On The Site .
I Like This New Site It Is Diffrent From The One We Started With..
In 95 I Think,
But I Sent Paul An E-mail 3 Day's Ago Telling how My Idea Works.
How To Make One And I Sent Him A Pic Of My First Idea Of It ..
If He Wants To Tell You All That It Dont Work Now ..
I Dont Know What To Tell You ... Im Watting For An Ancwer From Him .. When I Get It . I Will Know If Im Going To Tell All Of You . Or
See If Hybrid Wants To Make Me An Offer . If Not I Will Tell You How It Is Done So If You Want To Find Out Keep In Toudh And Wee Will See What Happends..
Most Of The Time He Get's Right Back With Me But . I Think He Is Talking It Over With Some Higher Power..
But I Want To Thank All Of You That Are On My Side Im Trying To Do Everything I Can To Save You Some Money..
Till Then ... Thanks ......jd
I Invented A Way To Run Anything That Use's Gas.. On Air.. I Can Tell You How To Make A Car Run On Air.
A Moter Bike , Run On Air.
I Know How To Run An Eletric Componey , On Air. I Have Stuff To Show You ..
. So That We All Can Save Money. And Stop All The .
Rasing Prices On Gas. Electric,
You Can Use My Idea . For Your Home.
To Power It . To Cool It To Heat It ..
It Is Real And I Know How To Do It ..
Please.. Hear I Will Tell You How To Make A Motor Bike Run On Air..
I Came Up With The Idea . At Work One Day..
Just Playing Around.
I Was A Grinder I Used Air Tools.
We Used Dollys To Move Stuf Around .
These Where Big Ones To
I Was Goofing Around At Work
I Sat On One Of The Dollys And I Touched The Tier With The Grinder
The Dolly And I Shot Acros The Room..
That Got Me Thinking, If This Littel Air Tool Can Move Me And This Big Dolly What If I Had A Biger Air Tool.
Now If You Take A Air Moter . A Compreser A Battery An Altanater
And A Tank Put Them On Somthing With Weels You Could Drive It Around..
This Is What I Did.
I Got All This Stuff
I Made A Fram .
And Put It To Gether.
And The Only Thing The Hybrid Is Missing Is An Altanater,
So Here It Is ..
The Compreser Files The Tank.
The Tank Runs The Moter
The Moter Moves The Car
The Moving Of The Tiers Runs The Altanater
The Altnater Charges The Battery.
The Battery Runs The Compreser....
What Is Takin Out Is Put Back In
Make Sence...
Thanks Jd ....................
I have read almost all of your ideas so far and find them very interresting. I am trying to design an air assisted bicycle for fun. I hope 4-20oz paintball tainks can give me a range of about 1 hour if I assist. There is a compressor from Air America that produces 4500 psi for about $550 USD. The tanks are about $100 each. As for the rest, I will price eventually. I figure attaching a hydraulic cylinder to the left pedal for propulsion. A 1 square inch average cylinder will give me about the same amount of push as pressure released from the tank(30 psi=30 pounds down on pedal). with a stroke of 20inches, this is about (30psi*20cu in/15psi(atmospheric pressure)) 40 cu inches of atmospheric air volume per half rotation of front sproket. A cylinder holds 36cu inches(20oz) @ 4500 psi(36*4500/15psi) =10800*4 tanks=43200cu in atmospheric air.
Now for more numbers: 40 cu in(half rotation) * 2 = 80. 1 rotation per second = 60 rpm *80 = 4800. 43200(total reserve)/4800= 9 minutes of power assist.
I think I need bigger tanks.
:mad: I am so sick of hearing that. It is getting electric power but what is easier to control???? 200 million cars and a few hundred power plants???????????? Not to mention that coal plants have reduced emissions yet have greatly increased output. It would reduce city pollution while improving air quality. Those millions of uncontrol emission cars won't do that. No, it's not a perfect solution YET!! but it's a great improvement.:o
:mad: I am so sick of hearing that. It is getting electric power but what is easier to control???? 200 million cars and a few hundred power plants???????????? Not to mention that coal plants have reduced emissions yet have greatly increased output. It would reduce city pollution while improving air quality. Those millions of uncontrol emission cars won't do that. No, it's not a perfect solution YET!! but it's a great improvement. :)
I SEE ON SOME OF YOUR OTHER WEBSITES YOUR MAKING A CAR THAT RUNS ON AIR... THAT IS FUNNY , READING BACK ON THINGS YOU SEAD ABOUT ME . AND CARS CANT RUN ON AIR . ,,, IM NOT GOING TO SAY ANYTHING BUT , IM HERE I KNOW HOW TO MAKE A CAR THAT RUNS ON AIR . I TOLD YOU HOW IT WORKS . WE BOTH KNOW IF WE MAKE THIS CAR WE CAN MAKE ALOT OF MONEY . MY IDEA IS SO SIMPEL . YOU CAN USE IT FOR ANYTHING THAT NEEDS GAS... .
THIS IS A WORKING MODLE
IM NOT LOOKING FOR THAT MUCH MONEY BUT WE BOTH KNOW THAT IT WILL MAKE BILLIONS ,,, AND IM NOT ASKNIG FOR THAT. IM JUST ASKING FOR THE CHANCE TO MAKE IT ..
... MY IDEA SAVES OIL/GAS/MONEY/ THE AIR/ . AND CAN MAKE YOU ALOT OF MONEY ..
please explaine how did you make car on air,thank you
Holy [&#@%!] Anonymous!!!! Geez you have a lot 2 say!!!!! how old r u???? GOSH!!!!
this is good except if someone would look you would see that a company in the u.s had already done a compressed air car company in the late 1800-s.i am a x-navy engineer and already know there is retrofit package to convert gas powered engine to air.......i am looking for investors to open a shop and do retro fit jobs and expirmential=type work i am very serious email me kennyz1@frontiernet.net
I would like info on converting package for a car. or where these car are on marketing. I find a lot of talk about this type of car
Post a new comment