A Green Driver’s Dream – a Compressed Air Car.

By Anita in Auto & Transportation on May 28, 2007 at 1:12 pm

India’s Tata Motors plans to introduce the first mass produced car powered entirely from compressed air. The CityCat model, shown above, has a range of 125 miles, and scoots around at up to 68 mph. Filling up is a breeze – either use a special air compressor at a gas station for about $2.00, or just plug it in for 4 hours at home.

Unfortunately, there’s no plans to export these to the United States – yet. Link via Digg

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Carl Huber
May 28th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Haaahhh hahahahahaha….because it takes no energy to compress air in the first place.
Abdul Alhazred
May 28th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Not so green, depending on what powers the compressor.

Electricity from burning coal? Or perhaps a large stationary engine?

OK the car itself is clean.
Anita
May 28th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Where I live, almost 100% of our power comes from Nuclear and Hydroelectric dams, so a car like this would be VERY green. Unfortunately, in India most energy comes from Coal, so it would simply shift auto energy from a high cost source (gasoline) to a low-cost one.
Melissa
May 28th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Where I live, our electicity comes from a hydroelectric plant and is sustainable and clean. So a car that runs on air compressed by an electric compressor would a HUGE improvement over a gas powered auto.
Izzy
May 28th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
This isn’t new. The Indian company is just a franchise of Moteur Developpment International (MDI). See their website at theaircar.com
JC
May 28th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
“Abdul Alhazred Says:
May 28th, 2007 at 1:59 pm

Not so green, depending on what powers the compressor.

Electricity from burning coal? Or perhaps a large stationary engine?

OK the car itself is clean. ”

I don’t know of any car that is 100% green. Oh yeah but a hybrid is much better because where you may live it may use nuclear or a hydro dam? Please. Studies are showing that hybrids will pollute more in the long run than some gas cars/SUVs/trucks.
Andrew
May 28th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
ok, I’m just going to state that i didnt read the article yet, but on it being green:

A friend of mine told me about these a while ago, and that even if you uses a normal car engine to compress the air for these you’d be getting the equivalent of over 100 MPG. So, most sources of energy you use to fill this up will still make it a green car.
Chris
May 28th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
to be a green car you’ll need also for it to be recyclable.
and for its manufacturing to be green.
mpg is a part of the whole.
Alex
May 28th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Maybe there’ll be a little valve that allows you to siphon off a little of that compressed air to dust the inside of the car … ahh! how clean the seats will be …
K!P
May 29th, 2007 at 4:47 am
Dont forget that a normal gasoline engine transfers about 70% of the energy into heat, burning it at a more economic plant could be greener.
(heat used to power steam turbine for example.)

i think its great, no nasty batery’s (chemicals) quick recharge at the station or a slower at home.
Eric
May 29th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Why do all these super efficent cars have to look so gay?
Gerry
May 29th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Ever see a really big truck tire or scuba bottle explode?
It’s like dynamite (I know one garage worker who was killed when a truck tire exploded as he filled it).

Compressed air is DEADLY. Trucks carrying compressed air are REQUIRED by law to display hazmat warning signs.

Can’t wait for the first traffic accident that sets off the tanks in this crackerbox. The ambulance-chasing lawyers will line up to sue the pants off of the company and anyone driving one for putting such a danger on the road….
Sid Morrison
May 29th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Gerry raises a good point about the potential energy involved in carrying around a lot of compressed air in a high speed vehicle. The storage systems (tanks, lines, etc.) need to be VERY robust (which add mass and suck up useful range).

Others raised issues with the energy required to compress air. This is frequently neglected, but is NOT trivial for air as it is not trivial for systems which compress natural gas to 3000 – 5000 psig for natural gas vehicles. Adding the electricity cost is essential! It seems the article is saying that $2.00 will get you 125 miles range. That implies a public (not home) high pressure dispensing and thus *should* have electricity cost already included… but be wary. The numbers sound fairly attractive, but I’d need more details to do the energy analysis.

One thing people have missed is that there is a big thermodynamic problem with compressing a gas into a tank and then running off the accumulated pressure. The compressed gas gets (Boyle’s Law) quite a lot hotter as it is compressed. Unless the tank is very well insulated, as it loses this heat and drops back to room temperature, you lose pressure (and range) — a big loss of energy. These systems need to take great pains to conserve the enthalpy of the compressed air. That’s a major reason why to date, there have been no practical public highway compressed air vehicles. They are more feasible for short term / short range use on scooters, fork trucks, etc. inside large factories (no emissions inside the building). In that application they are easily “charged up” and the slower travel speeds mitigates the need for serious crash protection. The fairly short time (hours, not many days) between recharges reduces the need for exotic tank insulation schemes.
Joel
May 31st, 2007 at 8:26 am
This type of car, while reducing overall pollution, also exports urban pollution to rural areas where the power plants are usually located.
c-dub
May 31st, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Nuclear and hydro are “green”? Are you kidding?

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