The most powerful question you can ask about many new
technologies is, “Where can I buy one today?”
That often leads to a response like, “Well, you can’t yet,
but you ought to, and soon.”
(Image: MDI's Mini-CAT, hot little three-seater concept car. Credit: MDI)
Various forms of ocean energy fit that category, and commercial
quantities of oil from algae, and compressed air cars.
Doesn't mean success isn't right around the corner, but often, it's been right around the corner for quite a while.
Cars running on compressed air have been around for years,
but somehow have never made it to prime time, and none of the many firms working
on them has put a line of cars on the open market.
One of the leading companies, MDI, has five models on its
website, none in commercial production. The French firm is working with the
Indian car company Tata to “industrialise a market ready product application
over the coming years.”
ZPM, Zero Pollution Motors, promised in 2009 to deliver an
MDI-type air car to the U.S. market in 2011. Not here yet.
And there’s zevolution.com, “the grassroots movement to
bring MDI.lu’s air cars to the North American market.”
APUQ, the Montreal firm that promotes its Quasiturbine
compressed air engine design, promises it could be the death of the piston
engine. APUQ stands for Association d Promotion des Usage de la Quasiturbine,
which translates roughly ‘Group Promoting Quasiturbine Use.” It’s a rotary pneumatic engine, operated with an air hose
attached. They’ve run a chain saw on it, and there are YouTube videos of carsretrofitted with Quasiturbines (they have compressed air tanks in the trunk and
have a tendency to putt like a gocart.) But no commercial car, yet.
AirCar Factories has a sexy website reminiscent of the
desert, but you can’t really make out the shape of the car. Well, and you can’t
buy one, either. As with several of the air cars, the website invites investor
interest.
Honda unveiled a concept air-powered car in 2010, but no
news after that.
Air cars promise great energy efficiency: it's pretty cheap to compress air, and you can get a good energy return from it. But there are bigger issues than you'd think. Not the least is that air cools quickly when it expands--meaning you could air-condition a car cheaply. But also meaning an engine could ice up unless you get every speck of moisture out of it. And dehumidifying air costs energy.
Air cars promise great energy efficiency: it's pretty cheap to compress air, and you can get a good energy return from it. But there are bigger issues than you'd think. Not the least is that air cools quickly when it expands--meaning you could air-condition a car cheaply. But also meaning an engine could ice up unless you get every speck of moisture out of it. And dehumidifying air costs energy.
Here at RaisingIslands, we started writing about air cars
back in 2007, and even back then, recommended folks not hold their breath.
Hope you haven’t been.
© Jan TenBruggencate 2012
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