The future car....

[rpn453]

Those claiming "big oil" intervention in the development of simple technology are following a pretty extreme conspiracy theory. Do you really think Western oil companies control every single country in the world, including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela? Or are their people simply too stupid to figure out compressed air?

Energy can be stored in a variety of ways, but the energy still has to come from somewhere. Compressed air sounds like a good solution for some who have access to cheap electricity and can't afford a high initial cost. If I had to drive a 1000 lb glorified golf cart around, I'd still rather have a little gas engine at this point. Think of the fuel economy you'd get if you didn't care about refinement, luxuries, or collision safety!

 

[Nate_V8]

In an extremely sunny enviroment would not a car covered in solar panels be an effective way to run the generator to compress the air? if it can be filled in 3 minutes with a 120 volt system a solar powered air compressor driven car could be interesting or even for city cars, make it a half electric/half compressed air, using the tech when the brakes are applied it can further charge a battery that charges the air compressor. The efficiency difference here is that you get 200mi per tank in a 3min fill up vs 250mi and a 6 hour charge.

It beats full electric x10 either way. in 8 years when your air tank is wore, how much is it going to cost to replace vs the batteries of an electric car? Which one is more harmful to the enviroment? Choice is obvious. Quicker fill ups and less alkaline metals wasted.

Correct if I'm wrong, this is just my take on the subject.

 

[Cujet]

If you have a home compressor of modest size, simply running a 1/4 HP die grinder will empty the tank in mere seconds. The 120V, 15A motor won't be able to keep up with the needs of a 1/4 HP air motor.

A car populated with the best solar panels won't produce anywhere near enough power to run a standard 2HP air compressor motor. So, the plan to solar power a compressor is loaded with massive efficiency problems.

Output would be pathetic and not anywhere near what batteries/motors could achieve with 90+ efficiencies.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Nate_V8
In an extremely sunny enviroment would not a car covered in solar panels be an effective way to run the generator to compress the air? if it can be filled in 3 minutes with a 120 volt system a solar powered air compressor driven car could be interesting or even for city cars


Here's what you get when you cover a car in solar panels, in the sunniest place in the world.

http://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/

And that's solar to batteries and wheels, not compressors.

 

[OceanDoctor]

Originally Posted By: rpn453
Those claiming "big oil" intervention in the development of simple technology are following a pretty extreme conspiracy theory.


It's called lobbying. Do you think "the oil companies" really need the personal defence of a civilian? They were effective enough to make the formerly useless waste product fraction of refining THE standard fuel (gasoline) over 100 years ago, and now what? They're all gone moral and righteous so they they can no longer be the most profitable private industry on the planet? D'Okay...

 

[OceanDoctor]

electrogravitics are the real future, not electromagnetic motors driven from electrochemical sources or explosions from chemical oxidation... and it's really not theory, and hasn't been since WW2. But shhh we're not supposed to know that

 

[rpn453]

Originally Posted By: OceanDoctor
It's called lobbying.


Oh, I see. I suppose the lobbyists of Western oil companies probably are really good buddies with the leaders of those countries. That explains it.

 

[OceanDoctor]

Originally Posted By: rpn453
Originally Posted By: OceanDoctor
It's called lobbying.


Oh, I see. I suppose the lobbyists of Western oil companies probably are really good buddies with the leaders of those countries. That explains it.


There you go! Now you're getting it. Finally, another Joe Citizen who realises that the biggest private multinational corporations on the planet wield all the power and influence they want over every government of every sovereighn nation. And if they don't fully cooperate, well, then it's time to remove dictators and bring freedom to that nation. Truthfully, though... the common notion that a government is the top dog; the epitome of the power structure, realistically amounts to an old wives tale. It's fun to be idealistic, it's essential to be realistic.

 

[rpn453]

Originally Posted By: OceanDoctor
There you go! Now you're getting it. Finally, another Joe Citizen who realises that the biggest private multinational corporations on the planet wield all the power and influence they want over every government of every sovereighn nation. And if they don't fully cooperate, well, then it's time to remove dictators and bring freedom to that nation. Truthfully, though... the common notion that a government is the top dog; the epitome of the power structure, realistically amounts to an old wives tale. It's fun to be idealistic, it's essential to be realistic.


Okay, you just go a little further on your conspiracy theories than I, which is what I was getting at in my first post. "Joe Citizen" would call me a crazy conspiracy theorist, but probably not an extreme one. I do have a good buddy who thinks the entire world is controlled by the same group of private elites. I only think the western world, the regions it has publicly conquered, and the regions that appear to cooperate with them are under their control. He even got into the reptilian theories at one point but seems to have backed off from those. That would be approaching the farthest ends of the extreme. I suppose the allowance of apparent conflict between nations and the existence of "bad guys" could be just a game or show to them. A little strange to me, but I guess I shouldn't personally call it extreme since it's not that far removed from my own beliefs. It all comes down to what scenario makes sense to you in the context of what you've observed and chosen to believe or reject.

So that works for more complex forms of energy generation, conversion, and storage like hydrogen fuel cells, for example, where you need some serious resources to go anywhere with it. But this use of compressed air is much more simple. More simple even than a battery-electric car, which many people have built themselves. Would they come to your home and shut you down if you started building your own air-powered car? What if some engineering or mechanical students ignored all the lies they've been taught relating to thermodynamics and built a perpetual motion compressed air vehicle? It seems to me that would happen occasionally in your scenario. I don't subscribe to the belief that you can fool all the people all the time. Not yet, anyway. But who knows what the reptilian hybrids using holographic mind control technology are capable of!

 

[Shannow]

Considering the Compressed Air car again, after a quiet Christmas, there are some things that would make for a useful light commuter.

Bloke down the lane skirted the requirement to have his spray painting "garage" register a pressure vessel by having a small off the shelf compressor and the entire shed zig-zagged with 2" pipe, providing massive, legal albeit funny looking storage. A car could have silly voids like sills, cowls, transmission tunnels with pipe type recievers...excess flow valves can make each compartment self sealing...throw in a rollcage even.

Expansion is cooling, and the more efficient the expansion the more cooling...could provide air conditioning tyoe cooling and ventilation (see the old ROVAC systems).

Multiple expansion could use heat exchangers to drag some ambient heat back into the cycle between stages.

Still doesn't make a heap of sense, but in the 60s, Chevrolet were working on a supercharging system that had a 12V compressor charge a fibreglass sphere with compressed air which was used to boost the air intake pressure (through an ejector) for hills and what not.

 

[rpn453]

Maybe fifteen years ago I read about an engineering professor that had used his mountain bike frame as a compressed air tank for a regenerative system to provide a little help going up hills. An editor of one of the mountain bike magazines who once rode with him wrote a short article on it and claimed that it worked well. I could see such a thing being used on vehicles if it were more efficient than a battery electric hybrid system.

 

[Shannow]

The hydraulic "hybrid" that's being tested on some largish vehicles holds some serious merit IMO.

Just to help launch.