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106 mpg 'air car' creates buzz, questions »

Posted by: david_nwpa 1 week, 4 days ago

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(CNN) -- You've heard of hybrids, electric cars and vehicles that can run on vegetable oil. But of all the contenders in the quest to produce the ultimate fuel-efficient car, this could be the first one to let you say, " Fill it up with air."

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david_nwpa1 week, 4 days ago

This is one type of technology our automakers in Detroit should be exploring. The big 3 could still turn out gasoline powered engines, while designing and building cars that run on compressed air. It makes a lot of sense to power a vehicle with virtually no emissions. For short trips around town, it makes perfect sense to use a vehicle which uses no gasoline at all. As for the mileage claims, I would not be surprised at all if they are correct.
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Wolfie20071 week, 4 days ago

I saw a story this week on propeller about a car being developed in India that runs on compressed air, also. Might be something to this if it is viable and if it can be produced at a reasonable price. Btw, I must have missed this in the article but what is the size of this automobile? Americans, especially ones who live in rural areas and have families need something bigger than a mini cooper.
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  corl641 week, 4 days ago
  
  This is suppose to be a six seater.
  
  But what I got from this article is how the safety factor was discussed. They are saying that it's aluminum frame design that is glued together is safe, that's fine, I always welcome new technology. But, and I'm just relying on my 30 years of automotive experience here, there is no front end on this car. That is what provides the safety in a front end collision. There are areas built into a vehicle called "crumple zones". These provide a way for the frame to collapse away from the passengers to protect them from injury. Just going by the picture in the article, these crumple zones would be under the drivers and front passengers feet, not a foot or so away like in vehicles currently produced.
  Another facter is that it takes 4500psi to run this engine. That's a lot of air pressure. The tank to hold that amount of pressure has to be made of thick gauge material and needs to be big enough to hold the volume of air needed to run the motor. If I had to guess, to run a car 100 miles at 75 mph, you would need a tank the size of two refridgerators. Where do you put a tank that size? The only way around that is by having a smaller tank holding a smaller volume and pressure, then feed it thru another pump to boost the pressure up to the desired amount. How much horsepower does it take to run that secondary pump?
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