I only want one if it's been blessed by a priest.

I can see it now,
Some dude on the side of the road with a bike pump trying to fill-er up.

*pump**pump**pump**pump**pump**pump*

bring it home for your wife/GF and ask if she wants you to inflate her tata for her.

So would it be possible to add a boiler and make it steam powered? I imagine you might need to alter the valve timing due to the different densities of air and steam.

If it saves me money, then cool.

But will it beat inflation?

Ba-boom, tish.

All jokes aside, this is so much more exciting then just another bigger gas engine announcement.

I haven't met an efficient air compressor yet.

@sos10: But it is just another gas engine announcement.

@Rust-MyEnemy: JokeOTD

So are you supposed to roll into the filling station and ask the attendant to blow you...?

@Charles_Barrett: Just teach the dragons some new tricks.

@Charles_Barrett: Oh boy. Here we go.

Forget the car that runs on water, man.

This thing runs on pure, clean air. Better keep it hidden or the oil companies' black helicopters are gonna swoop in and shut you down, man.

"Caught wind of it..." That's comedy gold.

You know, I'll have to dig into the potential energy involved in compressing different gasses, but I'll bet if you fill up with nitrous or helium you'll be able to blow the doors off the other guy at the stoplight.

While a car running on compressed air does not emit toxic exhaust gases, chances are it will be fairly noisy. The crash safety of the tanks should be similar to those used for CNG. The auto body may be good enough in this respect if it is well-engineered (cp. smart fortwo).

Note that compressing air to high pressures in the first place requires a lot of electrical power, which has to be produced somewhere first. Unless you rely on nuclear power - which has its own environmental drawbacks - the indirect CO2 emissions caused by an air car will still be significant given that most power plants run on either coal or gas. Renewable electricity is a good deal more expensive.

The biggest advantage the air car has is that storing pressurized air on board a vehicle is much cheaper than storing an electric charge. The biggest risk is that European finance ministers will eventually invent new taxes to claw back the revenue lost due to drivers switching to cheap alternatives to gasoline and diesel.

@beercheck: especially if you order the optional side-discharge nozzle.

@rgseidl: Another plus is the simplicity and light weight of the engine itself.

@rgseidl: I would say the electric to compress the air in most American markets is significantly cheap enough to make this a good alternative to gasoline or diesel.

I saw the "we chuckle at fill up procedure," I was hoping it was going to make an obnoxious farting noise while filling. Alas.

@beercheck: In that respect, the advantages are similar to electric. Fairly lightweight engine, and a big heavy energy source (battery or air tank) that can be scaled up or down depending on how long of a range you need, within reason. I find both these alternatives to be intriguing, at least for low-performance commuting and delivery vehicles.

Be interesting to compare the energy efficiency of the best compressed air vs. electric car of similar size/performance. @cgarison:

I wonder what kind of PSI they store in those tanks. Need more air capacity? Just install a sealed roll cage - tanks all around, baby!

@lascauxcaveman:
lloked like they were using some kind of carbon fiber for the tank... not steel ( see thing in engineers hands..)

plus, its gonna take a LONG time filling up that car.. especially thru the small hose...
we fill brewery tanks, (only 30psi, not 3000 psi)
and have a 2 cylinder 3 phase 220v compressor going
/
and its not fast...

Why cunt I find a link to the video?

Hmmm... interesting concept. Back in grade school I used to think of myself as a bit of an inventor, and sketched all sorts of crazy things out on paper. One was an air-powered car. Sadly I never had the means to execute on any of them, nor did I know what patents were... :-/

Now build one that runs on my urine.

@turbodan: I did the same thing. But I think it involved Sally's farts.

will this car contain a heater?

I know that the engine does not get as warm as an internal combustion, but will it produce usable heat, or even air conditioning?

Nothing new here. A french company has been building air poweredn city cars and couriers for several years now. I saw in on the Discovery Chennel about 2 years ago. Interesting concept.

@danio3834: Zing!

I thought the aircar was supposed to be both gleaming alloy and two lanes wide. What gives?

@danio3834:

Danio ol' boy, Im not sure if we can build one on your urine, yet, but we can make energy out of your number 2!

It is possible to make energy from household waste including waste from your toilet.

It may not be so easy to capture the farts from cows which is depleting the ozone faster than our muscle cars, but we can use their manure for energy & its being developed as we speak.

I think this compressed air concept is really on to something. There was a pgm on the Discovery chanel, but I wonder if it was him or someone else?

What I want to know is does it come with auto-pilot as an option?

+ Watch video

@Dr.Danger: in theory, i think that could work. would be good for getting you to the next air station...

but, think about this... what if, instead of carrying the compressed air onboard, the engine was able to compress its own? maybe by burning fuel in another cylinder of the engine... then inject fuel and spark into the cylinder with the compressed air in it... i could be on to something here.

A.N.U.S. demonstrated an early model in that fine promotional video we watched yesterday. Its biggest problem seemed to be that it only had one wheel.

@wheels OF satan!: what about swapping an empty air container with a full one? If the car is designed right, it can be done in seconds.

I never understood why we don't do this for electric cars... just design the car with a quickly removable battery, swap at the filling station... where the empty battery is recharged.... just like you would do with your mobile phone in case you run out of battery and have no time to recharge..

This pollutes more than an IC-powered car. Compressors are no more efficient than car engines, and there's no way the compressed air engine is 100% efficient. So the tree hugger who runs the briggs & stratton air compressor to fill this thing up will find himself burning more gas rather than less. It just adds an extra step in the conversion of gasoline's chemical potential energy into acceleration for you car. Thermodynamics 101, kids