Compressed Air-Powered Car | The EV Industry's Worst Nightmare

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Күн бұрын

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@donerskine7935 Ай бұрын

Energy has to be expended to compress gas, requiring power to drive a compressor. This is not green, it is utter nonsense. Also, compression is a very inefficient way of storing energy.

@donerskine7935 Ай бұрын

@Rei-m3g Come back when you have gained at least a basic understanding of physics.

@alxo74 Ай бұрын

Years ago, someone in Italy tried to build a small car with a compressed air engine. it was a disaster, and one of the worst problems was the formation of ice that blocked moving parts, due to the expansion of air at room temperature...

@simonmeszaros2770 Ай бұрын

Well air can be dry. this can be tricky anyway as ice will be formed on the outside of mechanical parts. Could be avoided if sealed. Probablybwould need heat exchanger as cold air has smaller volume thus making it less efficient in cold months. But still as a cheap alternative with limited range in the city i like it.

@thedubwhisperer2157 26 күн бұрын

@@simonmeszaros2770 Dry air does not stop the expansion side of things getting so cold that the surrounding water vapour in the air will start to build up as frost.

@simonmeszaros2770 26 күн бұрын

@@thedubwhisperer2157 sure i know that but "surrounding air" is something that may be eliminated on that parts.

@ryan.hanthorn Ай бұрын

When I was a child I had a toy called an "Air Jammer" which was basically a proof of concept for this. This is touted as "revolutionary" but it has some HUGE downsides. Namely it has minimal range, it can't really go that far with air tanks having very limited energy density. In addition there's some efficiency loss converting power into compressed air then to forward motion, the "cost per mile" would be far higher than that of a traditional electric motor. Lastly, if one of these fully charged cars got in an accident that penetrated the air tanks it would have a *significant* explosion releasing that compressed air. This is a fun concept but not a practical solution for the modern world.

@fishyerik Ай бұрын

Compressed air has ridiculously low energy density, even compared to batteries, even liquefied air theoretically has about the same gravimetric energy density as good liion batteries has, that is, the air alone, not counting the required containers. And that energy that's technically there, is also difficult to turn into usable power with reasonable efficiency. Batteries started to replace compressed air for use in power tools decades ago, before liion batteries where commercially available, for practical reasons. That's in stationary applications, where some of the drawbacks of utilizing compressed air as an energy carrier is much less severe than it is in mobile applications. On top of that, even at pressures that normal consumer grade "garage compressors" achieve, about half the energy used goes into just fighting the increased pressure from heat of compression, which will be lost when the compressed air cools down, meaning such compressors in practice, in combination with other issues have an efficiency far below 50%. On the other side, when expanding that compressed air to extract power from it, the air cools down, and about half the energy is lost due to that. That's essentially why a 2 kW compressor sometimes struggles to keep the tank sufficiently pressurized when supplying air to a compressed air power tool doing work that a 200 watt electric power tool can do just as well. In an air powered car you can't refill the tank, or tanks, while you're driving, meaning the temperature in the tank decrease as you use the air, which again reduce the amount of energy you can extract from a given amount of compressed air. The reason some places can provide compressed air for things like filling tires as a free service is that it doesn't cost much at all, and in that case the energy is a minute part of the total cost, because that air represents such small amount of energy, despite very low efficiency in compression, it doesn't take much energy to compress the air required to fill a few tires. At 7 bar, gauge, 8 bar absolute, (~100 psig), a cubic meter, (~264 gallons) almost the total volume of that "car", not the tank/tanks(?), compressed air represents less than 0.5 kWh, in theory, and in reality it's difficult to extract even half of that as usable power. That means, at pressures most people are familiar with, and which you might be able to find offered for free to fill your tires, you need an air tank about the size of that car to store the amount of usable energy (after losses) that 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of batteries can store. While the 18 bar on the sign near the end of the video is more than 7 bar, tanks that doesn't take up way too much of the potentially useful space in that bubble can't provide more useful energy than what a somewhat big power bank for phones can store, it's just not physically possible. The properties of air that are relevant for using compressed air as an energy carrier is very well researched and understood, and also well documented, and as a pure energy carrier, for grund level transportation, it's just not a relevant alternative to batteries, it's way worse even compared to lead acid batteries for powering "cars". In niche applications, where the air is very useful for some reason, and or if the expanded air is used for cooling/air conditioning, it can be relevant to use compressed air, but the power would be more of a nice by product than the main reason to use compressed air. Not considering pneumatic systems on vehicles here, despite the fact that the air in a way acts as an energy carrier.

@AstronautTeeth 17 күн бұрын

These guys have been trying to get this up and running since the late 1990s. I have no idea how they're still in business.

@JohnnyBuxton Ай бұрын

How do you compress this air? Magic? Nah.. probably electrict... oh

@franzbernhard301 Ай бұрын

Air driven locomotives in mining are nothing new, but a small look at their tanks got me thinking. What preassures are used and what volume is stored in that thing? If the preassure is higher than 10bar, good luck filling it up somewhere. And everyone that runs air tools knows that they take a lot of air. And air is not very efficient to produce. If you compress air you get heat. I don't know about that thing... sure it is cheap to produce, but the energy to get compressed air ... not hearly as bad as H² but the energy density is not great.

@howardhuckleberry2098 Ай бұрын

The Tata OneCAT (Compressed Air Technology) was advertised as an upcoming compressed air car in 2008. India's Tata Motors was said to be collaborating with Air engine developer Guy Nègre of MDI to produce the vehicle.[1]

@martinbingham-l5m Ай бұрын

I have a new invention I'm going to patent. My car has a very long pole holding a 10Ton lead weight up. As I drive along a piece of space age string that's wrapped around the rear axle unravels. as the weight, under the influence of a newly discovered phenomenon called gravity, pulls on the string and propels the car forwards. Better still, it's completely reversible. All I have to do to recharge the car after I've driven into town and done the shopping, is push it backwards all the way home. Voila, no more fuel bills.

@thedubwhisperer2157 26 күн бұрын

Pure genius - sell it to Musk - he likes that kind of thing!

@howardhuckleberry2098 Ай бұрын

Tata from India has already done this and has a market for engine in forklifts, some 3 or 4 years ago!

@OliverSmith-j6d Ай бұрын

This has been "just about to come out" for at least 10 years. No updates to their facebook page since 2018

@fujimotosan9123 Ай бұрын

If you want, you can use a bicycle pump to refuel it. It's just a little impractical 🤣

@thedubwhisperer2157 Ай бұрын

It's just around the corner - always two years around the corner!

@obsidian9998 Ай бұрын

What's the greenest way to compresses air. Meaning what's the most analog cheapest methods without fossil fuels to charge it?

@thedubwhisperer2157 26 күн бұрын

Interesting question. Wind turbines, perhaps? It's still a horrible way to try and store energy.

@Bobrogers99 Ай бұрын

That tiny vehicle would be dangerous to share the road with full-sized cars, and in an accident, puncturing the air tank would make quite an explosion. I imagine its range would be less than any EV. It's an interesting concept, but not a practical one.

@andrewyeo5288 Ай бұрын

this is proof AI is dumb

@farvision Ай бұрын

Though lithium is expensive, it is 100% recyclable and that is being worked on by a companies. The energy has to come from SOMEWHERE - namely electric pumps. So this is not a nightmare - they are WAY BEHIND electric vehicles. They might gain part of the market.