The Revolutionary Design of the Asymmetric Engine

[@ZirothTech]

There is a lot of history behind the air engine, but after hearing about the MDI story, I thought it was worth focusing on! Also, don't forget to get started with Onshape for FREE: Onshape.pro/Ziroth - You won't regret giving it a try!

[@sergeyvaninsky]

It is worth trying to store liquefied air (or oxygen) in a tank (Dewar vessel), and a small amount of fuel, such as dimethyl ether, in another tank. In the engine, the evaporation of liquid air is carried out due to the heat of the environment, and then the efficiency of the Carnot cycle is increased by burning a tiny amount of fuel. In this way, it is possible to achieve very high efficiency with a temperature difference of approximately 90 - 900 K. And it is imperative to use recuperation (pressure + heat) during braking. Air can be liquefied directly from wind turbines mechanically without electricity.

[@jamesbonander]

i was wondering if a progressing cavity motor which is used in drill motors for oil exploration or steerable drills normally they use liquid but as there are not abrasives involved I would thing think it could work as most progressive cavity motors can produce 125 ft-lb per stage

[@grigorione]

what happens if you put small light bulb or some other way of heating the air , inside the air canister? Would the warmer air flow better etc ?

[@hamjudo]

Compressed air powered mining equipment made a lot of sense back before lithium ion batteries. They were also quite popular for vehicles that were designed to be used indoors. They were particularly well suited for use in hot environments with low air quality because the engine releases cool clean air in normal operation. They didn't need separate systems for cooling and breathing air. They also wouldn't set off explosive atmospheres in a mine. In fact, they could be built without any electronic or even electrical equipment at all. They also made sense where cleanliness was important. For example, the golf cart like vehicles used inside airports and factories. The limited range wasn't a problem, because those environments typically already had multiple high pressure air connections for pneumatic tools and refilling the tank was so fast. Compressed air powered vehicles have been around for so many decades. Yet they never sold well for use outdoors. They couldn't compete with internal combustion engines where exhaust could be tolerated. They can't compete with electric vehicles, now that we have good batteries.

[@Psrj-ad]

all the ineficiancy of combustion engines with non of the energy density.

[@alexhguerra]

could be possible to be useful on places with high mechanical energy avaliability / surplus ... like wind farms

[@kensmith5694]

A better design could be most efficient but still the energy in the tank is too little.

[@fakestory1753]

@@alexhguerra So, the wind farm not only capture the wind energy, but now the presence of wind itself.

[@vibs1614]

Old fashioned double expansion steam engine running on air. Still seems fun. Just install a boiler and you've got something.

[@kensmith5694]

It isn't even as good as a double expansion steam engine. They are leaving the inlet valve open too long and also reducing the pressure before the air even gets to the engine.

[@codywiess7075]

A 3 or 4 expansion would great as well

[@0005yuki]

and it still looks better than the new jaguar

[@ravenmad9225]

Jaguar are now a tarnished brand.I think the new car looks cool,but it's a concept. The production car won't look anywhere near the concept.That,in conjunction with the woke stigma they have created for themselves,will make it a very hard sell.

[@pompeymonkey3271]

Haha!

[@frostfamily5321]

​​@@ravenmad9225 Why would there be a lack of "woke" people who are rich? And I wonder if they tried going electric, CVT, steam powered, or maybe even some combination of those?

[@wanderingbufoon]

@@ravenmad9225its like a more boring Cadillac concept car from 10 years ago

[@sumoneskid]

🤣

[@clintonhalunajan467]

Liquified air can improve the energy density problem

[@EbenBransome]

When the Germans and the Allies tried liquid oxygen to increase aircraft engine power in WW2, it had to be dispensed to the aircraft on the runway because it evaporated so fast. To keep liquid air liquid you would need an awful lot of insulation - and an electric refrigerator to deal with the ineviable heat loss.

[@ginaanddenes9059]

Unbelievably impractical. Point to ONE everyday usage. The pressure required to keep air liquid at normal temperatures would create a sizeable bomb.

[@ctcboater]

Fuel>electricity>compress air>transfer air>store air>convert pressure to mechanical: It looks like a complicated way to get around...

[@flickthenick]

Yup and how much energy is lost at every stage I wonder? efficiency into thin air!

[@alveolate]

agreed... if your power source is a fundamentally different process from other drivetrains... why is it necessary to still use pistons? aren't there better ways to use pressurised air to convert its forces into turning momentum? i feel like the tech is extremely far from the level of optimisations that ICE is at, and perhaps with enough engineers spending brain power working out its kinks we could get something far more efficient than what we saw in this video. the question is: will the arduous process be worth it?

[@puffinjuice]

Combustion is very complicated as well. There is so much support equipment to make a combustion engine run.

[@erykczajkowski8226]

But how cheap is the equipment to pressurize air, you can do it in your garage. You don't need to move the air around. And the vehicle should be WAY cheaper than even gasoline one, let alone electric.

[@ravenmad9225]

The recharge time is the big advantage. Even EV's are electricity to battery,back to electricity.

[@lephtovermeet]

Compressed air isn't an energy source - it's a battery, and a relatively low energy density battery at that. 23% efficiency from plug to wheels isn't that far off from IC engines. So what's the trade-off then to a typical battery operated vehicle? Well, compressed air vehicle theoretically don't need rare earth minerals and are highly recyclable. Otherwise... I'm not sure. They'll have way more moving parts with life cycles due to wear and tear, and the fact that only a tiny prototype has been proven rather than retrofitting a small car shows there's obviously limits to the performance. In a perfect world where we all drive super light smaller vehicles, this might be a viable option that's actually greener. In fhe real world where uneducated emotional consumers demand 5000lb SUVs, infinite torque, and 0-60 in 3 seconds, batteries seem to make more sense, environmental impact be damned.

[@drgyt2469]

He stated the efficiency was driven up to 90% of a Li-Ion Battery.

[@puffinjuice]

Sounds like car manufacturers should be into this if they can make money from selling parts.

[@SD-vy7gj]

Your writing it off because it doesn't solve all the worlds problems, tick every box and isnt able to replace all fosil fuels vehicles. There's plenty of aplications for a vehicle or engine like this.

[@loiskimberleyplayer]

This is so interesting! Love the story behind it featuring in this video. Thanks for all the hard work!

[@EbenBransome]

In the past places like explosive plants used steam engines which had hot water tanks but no boiler. Water was fed in at high temperature and pressure, and then as the valves were opened it produced steam which powered the locomotive with no flames or sparks. As I child I saw them in action at the local gas works. This is actually much higher power density than compressed air, but they required frequent recharging (like every half hour).

[@tonycosta3302]

They should have opted for a more traditional vehicle design. That Air Pod thing makes a Reliant Robin look normal. And Tata tried to launch a compressed air car, but it never made it out the gate.

[@pompeymonkey3271]

Why does it always have to be a car? I have an ebike and I love it. Not so nice in the wet, but I still love it. :)

[@kensmith5694]

Holding up that great big tank is most of what the car does

[@farshaikh1]

I had the exact same question, we do have initial 2 wheelers in India, powered by CNG but as CNG is not renewable, this seems like a great alternative.

[@kensmith5694]

@@farshaikh1 Biogas could be an option if there was a small enough demand that the supply could meet the need.

[@kensmith5694]

At 6:10 you state a huge part of the problem. These guys didn't design a very good engine. They are throwing away a huge fraction of the energy in the compressed air even before it gets into the engine. The engine really should be designed for about 10,000 PSI and have a wide range of cutoffs. When the tank is at it high pressure limit, the inlet value to the cylinder should only open briefly near top dead center. This air would then be allowed to expand all the way down to the normal 15PSI before being released. As the tank pressure decreases, the inlet valve would stay open a little longer to allow more are at the lower pressure in. This still won't compete with a battery but there may be applications where it can be used. This would be cases where it goes through many full charge/discharge cycles per day like a shuttle might.

[@jarkkoaitti287]

Why does that converting to a lower pressure lose so much energy? because of heat? its not like you throw away any air to do that but just take less of it by for example, restricting air flow. How about something from electronics, we used to use transistors to restrict current flow by varying it's resistance and losing that part to heat but modern electronics do it differently by completely cutting off and and switching on at high speed, no resistive losses. so instead of capacitor to smooth output, air could use a smaller tank to do that?

[@jarkkoaitti287]

Also modern air pressure energy systems recirculate those heat differences. I was pondering that yesterday when i was emptying some old "airduster" spray cans. They get very cold when doing that and lose pressure fast because of that. When i put them in a hot water, i got a lot more out of them with lots of pressure..

[@kensmith5694]

@@jarkkoaitti287 Yes PV = NRT P = Pressure V = Volume N = Number of molecules (sort of) R = A constant to make the units work T = Temperature above absolute zero Room temperature is about 300K If you warm a chamber to about 600K (Don't try this at home) you get twice the pressure.

[@kensmith5694]

@@jarkkoaitti287 In air systems, the way you go to lower pressures is to lose the pressure without gaining more air. The amount of air times the pressure it is at times a constant is the amount of energy you have. A thing that works like a switching regulator could be built for air pressure. This isn't what they are doing. But here is the idea: You briefly open a valve to let air flow into a longish tube. The air in the tube gets some momentum going. You extremely suddenly close the valve. The air can't stop instantly so its momentum makes a partial vacuum near the valve. At this point, a check value opens to let some outside air fill that vacuum. The check valve closes and then the cycle repeats. Hearing protectors would be needed a block away but it would work.

[@Patiboke]

Great stuff! Limited range but lightning fast charging. Today there are diesel and gasoline ICE engines and EVs on the road, so it wouldn't be a problem if the future was a mix of EVs and air cars. The latter would be nice for petrolheads who prefer a roaring engine in their car.

[@jhfdhgvnbjm75]

2:19 I hate to say it but thats nothing new, its just the same as a double expansion steam engine, though often they were triple expansion.

[@charlestaylor3195]

The need to focus on an onboard air compressor that is not gas or electric, once they do that there's a million air powered motors to choose from.

[@ernie5229]

Add a small gas-powered generator to charge batteries to run an onboard compressor. Problem solved!

[@13thravenpurple94]

Brilliant video! Thanks a ton 👍

[@davidhulk]

i could have sworn i saw a air power vehicle project that had liquid air in one tank then went through a heater to convert the liquid to a gas to be used in the other tank that goes to the engine it supposedly had a theoretical range of 200 - 300 km and went 80 kph

[@dwimarpinnock9799]

I hope it succeeds... I think it could be a cool alternative to power trains

[@Hydrogenblonde]

Didn't actually say much about the inner workings of the air motor.

[@Iron_Alabasterd]

I'm curious how they dealt (or perhaps didn't) with the natural accumulation of water vapor inside the device. Is there a purge valve somewhere, further decreasing the efficiency of the vehicle?

[@johncochran8497]

About the only advantage I can see is that it doesn't degrade with time like batteries do. But there's so many inefficiencies in the overall system. 1. When you compress air, it gets hot. That heat is then dissipated over time. So, we lose energy. 2. When you reduce the pressure, it gets cold. I noticed in one of the diagrams that they add heat. Where does that heat come from? Again, we have an energy loss. I'm rather surprised that they managed to get 23% from source to wheels. Honestly, I would have expected lower. And I *really* don't like unmaintained high pressure containers near my fragile body. A general rule of thumb is that if you have some stored energy that can be released in an uncontrolled manner, it can do "bad things". The more rapid and uncontrolled that release is, the more damage it can do. That damage may include killing those people nearby when the energy is released. See kzbin.info/www/bejne/ioumfXmPZdyVbc0

[@mikemotorbike4283]

In a one ton missile called a car, you sit on a gas tank and go 100 km/h mere feet from oncoming cars - just like jousting. You hurl yourself up and suspended unnaturally in the firmament on an enormous pendulous fuselage... straddle tons of explosive jet fuel sloshing under great pressure between your legs, shall I go on?

[@GruffSillyGoat]

The 23% was Plug to Wheel, Source to Wheel efficiency will lower as this will include the cost of electricity transmission, air filtering and powering an air-pump to compress the air at the fueling plug.

[@VeniceInventors]

I don't understand why there would be any significant energy loss when dropping the pressure from 350 to 20 bars.

[@paradiselost9946]

3:16 is the point when a compound engine in reality proves to not be as effective as it would appear.... the pressure acting on the large piston to force it down is still acting on the small piston-that is now traveling up. the smaller areas cancels and you only get the remainder of the large piston area producing useful force. and any air engine benefits from the addition of heat. its all an ICE is. it ingests air, compresses it, heats it up rapidly causing a rise in pressure that is then used to produce force on a piston.

[@Timothyshannon-fz4jx]

Then build an engine with smaller diameter pistons and better seals that can run at the full tank pressure, this will give much increased expansion and a 3 stage engine will be more efficent with some means of atmospheric reheating of the air (possibly with the aid of a heat pump) the idea is good, BUT, and this is the caviat, this uis a jestating technology that requires more development, and with that, this could become a viable technology, I am an engineer, and very interested in heat pump development to improve any heat engine , and essentially that is what this is.

[@emjay9280]

I have a better idea. Release the compressed air into a combustion chamber, mix it with fuel, ignite it, and direct the high-speed expanding exhaust gas backwards to create forward momentum. I think I might patent this idea. 🤔

[@anthonyanglim7147]

Wow! Look Out! This should grab a huge market share in cities and suburbs. Awesome

[@loppydisk]

Air power vehicles would good for indoor situations. Like in factories. You will always be near by air lines

[@hschmidt79]

2kWh? 4kWh? Even 11kWh in Battery Cells cost less than 600$. How much does that 350bar air tank cost? How much the piston-engine compared to an electric motor? The should just put an electric drivetrain into their ultra-light-vehicle.

[@erikvan9582]

If this thing is used for day to day going from home to work wouldn't this work?Most people work at most 30 km from their house

[@RussellBeattie]

I'm sure they've thought of recharging EV batteries instead of using the engine to power the wheels directly. It seems to make sense - especially with the 90 second refill time. Rough calculations: The Mini Cooper Electric has a 28 kWh battery and gets about 180 km of range. That's 6.4 km per kWh. If the compressed air engine could work well enough so that a tank of air could be converted into 4 kWh of electric power, that would be an additional 25 km of range per air fill up, (assuming the air engine doesn't add any weight). A potential additional 14% range isn't horrible. That said, the added complexity and infrastructure doesn't make any sort of economic sense, so never mind.

[@fishyerik]

You just have to take the ridiculous amount of energy compressed air represents for a given amount, and a basic understanding of some of the difficulties in turning that energy into power with reasonable efficiency, especially at a relevant rate, to realize that compressed air can't compete even with lead acid batteries for powering vehicles except under very specific conditions that happens to favor air in niche applications. Just two-stage expansion, and pistons, means power output and efficiency will fall of a cliff due to the fact that the engine and remaining air cools down, within just a few minutes if you try to extract even a few hundred watts from system that can reasonably fit in that thing. Reducing the pressure before use doesn't just reduce the potential energy by almost 50% from that reduction in pressure, the temperature will also decrease due to the Joule-Thompson effect, which means another loss of potential energy of roughly 20% without reheating. Which means about 70% of the potential energy in the air used will be lost as soon as the inside surfaces have cooled down, and it will become even worse after that when the system cools down further, and the air in the tank cools down. Two stage expansion doesn't mean you get isothermal expansion, not anywhere near that, without significant reheating between the stages you wont be able to extract even the amount of usable power that ideal adiabatic expansion would represent. Reheating the air enough to compensate for typical mechanical losses with ambient air as the heat source isn't realistic without humongous heat exchangers. I don't see how they could extract even close to 2 kWh from 80 kg of air at 20 bar during continuous use when all surfaces that collect heat from ambient air gets covered in insulating frost, which they will. If they're not intentionally trying to scam people, they're pretty clueless, and haven't even tried to run a working prototype with their claimed specifications from full tank to empty. There might be a case to make for compressed air to power range extenders, under very specific conditions, that would be if air conditioning from cooling and expelled cool dry air was considered the main benefit, and the small amount of power extracted was considered a nice bonus. It might be possible to make compressed air range extenders meaningful for city buses in hot humid cities with very polluted air. But even that would require some excellent engineering, to potentially be meaningful. Even used as an air conditioner, and the power extracted being a small bonus wouldn't be meaningful if the system was idiotically engineered, like if ~70% of the benefit was wasted before even attempting to use it, due to engineering laziness, or using piston expanders, or without multiple stages of expanders with reheating in between.

[@mabapro08]

1:02 I had that exact toy as a kid.

[@vevenaneathna]

i remember reading about these back in the day. one thing left out is the advancments in ultra high pressure low weight cylinders which are now common place due to carbon fiber. that still, the fact that china is making new ev's for 15k usd means its game over for this tech.

[@EbenBransome]

China is making them for a lot less than $15k.

[@Herbit-k4j]

I wonder why the picked such a small form factor. their storage tank's energy density should go up the more they scale up the car, thanks to the square cubed law. I'm guessing because they could never be energy dense enough to reach any acceptable range at highway speeds. They could have focused on last mile delivery. Larger vehicles and lower speeds!

[@ktwei]

Technically all engines run on air.

[@remliqa]

*Internal combustion engines .

[@hankhulator5007]

@@remliqa There are much less external combustion engines… 😋

[@ktwei]

@@remliqa even jet turbines.

[@remliqa]

@@ktwei If we include those then electric motors or water turbines would be considered as engines.

[@remliqa]

@@hankhulator5007 They do exist, though. Stirling engine for example are considered to be one.

[@flickthenick]

1799, George Medhurst invented the first motorized air compression system that was used primarily in the mining industry. Nothing new here...

[@dustman96]

Why not just use the compressed air in a small combustion engine? Like a really high pressure supercharger.

[@Nirdian]

At this point i feel like having battery vehicle like Aptera with solar panels is way better option than this

[@dtibor5903]

Idk, but I would not be in an accident with a 350 bar tank inside the car. It can launch the car off the ground or shred people into pieces in a blast. Literally.

[@doubleooh7337]

that's not the original compressed air engine, which requires no extra input air, which i have the patent schematic for! bob neal compressed air engine. scott robertson's compresser system. the retro-fit compressed air vehicle system of leroy rogers. eber van valkinburg's engine. josel papp inert gas engine conversion. robert britts inert gas motor. heinrich klostermann air plasma motor.

[@lukebliss608]

Why not use this tech for powering a bicycle? In many cases long range isn't needed. Is the engine and/or tank that heavy and/or big to make it viable?

[@Mancozeb100]

Well, back to my 1000 elastic band design, so. The addition of natural coconut fibres is showing a lot of promise. And vinegar. The vinegar makes all the difference. Watch this space.

[@stusue9733]

VIC Australia spent a rather large amount of money on air powered karts for the fruit and veg market(from memory) for a trial. Disappeared, never to be heard of again. I assume the trail did not go well lol

[@philipgrobler7253]

The Airpod engine is very similar to a Sterling engine.

[@PhredMacmurray]

No air-conditioning, no heat, no electric conveniences of any type in in the archaic double expansion steam engine. With no steam.

[@David_Mash]

As an airport vehicle, they could fill up every 10 minutes without an issue

[@apw50]

NCAP rating?

[@gvii]

Because it was an idea that sounds great in marketing wank, especially with it's paper thin veneer of "green" credentials, but is objectively terrible in practice except for some fairly niche use cases?

[@allanbray852]

AKA a double expansion steam engine. Look it up. I don’t see the difference between this and running compressed air through 19th century technology.😊

[@Philip-qq7ql]

this sounds a lot like shoving a crankshaft in the end of a pneumatic cylinder

[@olagarto1917]

If only it had regenerative breaking

[@edwardnedharvey8019]

Not liking the clickbait thumbnail. Running on compressed air is not "no fuel needed" and how was there anything about this supposed to be revolutionary? Not even close to a new idea.

[@NcikTrunbull-v1q]

agreed stupid ass idea

[@aname2432]

That's what the quotes are for

[@aname2432]

The 'revolutionary' air engine

[@DozenDeuce]

He did a better job in this single video, than a decade of automotive “journalism”. For those of us that were following the automotive industry during the late 90’s - late 00’s, air engines were a “clickbait” article of the time. It went viral among magazine editors because it was something they could easily slap on a cover, repeat the outlandish claims of the company, then sell a TON of magazines. He’s merely repeating some of the hyperbolic marketing claims of that time and seeing if they hold up to scrutiny…then showing why they don’t. Good update on this blast from the past

[@desertstar223]

Did someone piss in your coffee this morning? The word revolutionary is written between quotation marks. It means something. Paper Brain.

[@rexcadral3468]

I remember seeing these guys on TV like 30 years ago. It's a flawed design.

[@hamzaterzi8801]

Air must be stored at high pressure for high ranges. To do this, you need carbon fiber tanks. Carbon fiber begins to crack under constant pressure changes (remember the Titanic submarine disaster). Installing high-pressure tanks on civilian vehicles is extremely dangerous. They explode instantly and you don't have time to escape. Pressurized tanks don't give you a chance like a lithium ion battery.

[@ravenmad9225]

Carbon fibre is good under tension,no so good under compression.

[@hamzaterzi8801]

@@ravenmad9225 The academic paper "Characterization of Polymeric Composites for Hydrogen Tank" says the opposite.

[@hamzaterzi8801]

@@ravenmad9225 Bro, this hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology is completely a salvation for the oil barons. Frankly, I wouldn't want a surprise bomb on my street or highway. Even if you have regular maintenance on your gas tanks. Microcracks may not be detected by the device. Those micro cracks turn into macro cracks in split seconds. Afterwards, the fireworks show begins.

[@hamzaterzi8801]

@@ravenmad9225 Compressed air tanks and engines are complete nonsense.

[@EbenBransome]

@@hamzaterzi8801 It doesn't. Carbon fibre is stronger under tension than compression in the usual composites. It is certainly not stronger under compression as you think. Toyota Mirais have been driving around for years with zero tank ruptures. And the failure mode of a correctly designed tank does not cause instant explosion.

[@grahamkearnon6682]

Surely an onboard battery to power the compressor & alternator would help!

[@SuperHurdman]

The problem is not air the problem is OIL! and $ that is the problem!

[@pandemik0]

$2kw is now about $200 of battery out the factory door. Such a vehicle was never going to be viable, the price/performance of air would never ride down a cost curve like EV powertrains and would be limited by the laws of physics.

[@ianisbell500]

You kept saying energy source. It’s not. It’s energy storage.

[@jimbojones9665]

Nope. It isn't powered by air. This machine is powered by whatever power source is used to compress the air.

[@licencetoswill]

just go full ev and avoid all that complexity and inefficiency. something's weird here.

[@ChadKovac]

click bait garbage the air is compressed

[@juliansantos1900]

Isn't this is just compressed air engine? Am bit disappointed

[@julesviolin]

Totally ugly car. Make them prettier and folk might buy them

[@johnburns4017]

Using inefficient pistons gets you nowhere.

[@desertedpyro3238]

Those would totally get bullied in america

[@adamreynolds3863]

oh.....its limited my bullsheet..okay could have lead with that...freakin aliens

[@Reiner_Markenfreund]

Vielen Dank, Ziroth, sind Sie mit dem Prinzip des Wirbelrohrs vertraut, das es ermöglicht, aus Druckluft sowohl heiße als auch kalte Luftströme zu erzeugen? Es funktioniert sogar noch effizienter mit einem idealen Thermogas. Man muss nur ein Kohlenstoffatom zum Sauerstoffmolekül in der Luft hinzufügen, um Gas für diese Effekttivität zu erzielen. Dieser Prozess liefert zudem auch etwas Konstruktionsenergie für das System.

[@olagarto1917]

The problem is that it is ugly as fuck , it should be a normal looking bike instrad of a pod ... An 100k range that ressets every day is enough for a day to day drive

[@bkparque]

Liquid air battery electric is better

[@hartsockthomson3334]

Engines from artificial muscles fed by photosynthesizing sun and Co2 is the only way. I dont know why they sweat it so much to creats the next thing while the most efficient engine is meat.

[@hartsockthomson3334]

@@EbenBransome Taking me literarly is like watching The Onion to form an opinion....

[@jeebusk]

the thumbnail was a total scam

[@vylbird8014]

They all all.

[@ravenmad9225]

How so? Explain.

[@vylbird8014]

@@ravenmad9225 KZbin is a very competitive environment. Regular subscribers to a channel will keep coming back to watch a channel, but attracting new viewers means the video needs to draw the attention of people scrolling through their suggestions, eyes waving over a few videos every second and barely seeing the titles. Success in that environment requires the use of clickbait. A thumbnail that will instantly grab someone's attention. The classic method was "KZbin Face" - someone mugging at the camera with a ridiculously exagerated expression. These days AI generated thumbnails are common. Tech channels like to generate an image of some overly-complicated mechanism to trigger viewer curiosity, even if it has no relation to the content. Channels don't have to use these manipulations, but any that don't are going to suffer in the viewing numbers.

[@cerellitv2978]

I wonder if this is a great idea that is trying to solve the wrong problem. I wonder how much energy this could generate if where to design it as a stationary generator on top or on the sides of large building that by their nature catch or channel a lot of air then turn the natural pressure of provided by the wind outside into electricity instead.

[@mike4181]

FUEL ENGINE, Just build more Efficient and SIMPLE Engines like the JAPANESE are doing. IMPROVE= is to make a Regenerative Breakes to fuel that Engine with... Hidrogen, and yes, i dont care about "engines only 40% efficiency..", is better than nothing, and few part to be added.-

[@donniewatson9120]

It's ugly is what happened.

[@davidpearn5925]

Why was the council given a backhander in the very beginning ?. Seems like Elon Musk must be in the vicinity....... it's nonsense.

[@kennethgardzinski]

🤓😎

[@paulgracey4697]

Any means of mechanical transport that is less efficient than a bicycle, which this system is, makes no sense except as trendy gimmick for salesmen to flog.

[@FinflazodeTurroai]

Of course it is a fraud ... Just take a look at the compressed air engines history. They are not new at all. Thay are almost as absurd as electric cars, LOL.

[@jamesbonander]

i i

[@erykczajkowski8226]

Low energy efficiency seems not very important, if the vehicle is much cheaper than ridiculously expensive EVs, then they will be anyway a better choice for people not using them heavily. You have somewhat higher maintenance offset by hugely lower upfront cost.

[@maikee72]

Thanks for nothing!

[@1963pipo]

An EV without batteries.

[@TheHoveHeretic]

Err .... no, not really