Air-powered car on its way by 2011
By Jason Buckland, Sympatico / MSN Finance
No, this isn’t a bad flatulence joke. We’re serious.
As engineers topple over themselves to one-up each other and thumb the eye of the SUV era, the latest car design needs not hybrid fuel or a solar charge to operate – rather, simply air.
France’s Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) announced yesterday they plan to have an incredibly fuel-efficient vehicle, one that could emit nothing but air into the atmosphere, on North American roads by 2011.
The to-be-named model is likely to receive a retail tag of $18,000-to-$20,000 and could
reach an impressive top speed of about 150 km/h, ZPM’s chief exec says.
Sceptical? I bet. Here’s how it works:
The ZPM functions like an electric car, requiring a plug-in to a wall outlet to charge the on-board air compressor, which will pressurize the vehicle’s air tank to 4,500 pounds/sq. inch.
After four hours, the car reaches full pressure and will be able to send air into the engine to power its pistons and run the automobile. At speeds less than about 55 km/h, the vehicle can run exclusively on the air tank and emits “only cold air”, according to the ZPM boss.
For faster speeds, a small conventionally-fuelled engine kicks in to run a heater to warm the air to hurry its release. The fuelled engine also refills the air tank, as well, apparently extending the range and speed.
You have to admit, this is pretty cool stuff. There’s a big draw-back in that, after the four-hour charge, you can only take the car about 32 km before the air tank runs out and the fuelled engine is forced to take over. But that seems a bit nitpicky, especially considering the ZPM model is supposed to get you a staggering 100 mpg (or 43 km/L) in fuel consumption.
There are, of course, a lot of sceptics quick to pick apart the ZPM car, and maybe they’re right. Air compression isn’t the most efficient way to convert electricity to work, one engineer tells the Associated Press. And the Chevy Volt is supposed to get the same fuel consumption when it’s to be released, too.
Regardless, there is a lot to like. If you can stomach the look of the car, its retail price would go for about half of what the Volt is rumoured to debut at (around $40,000). And, if you can believe it, steps are being made to ensure the super-light, super-small ZPM model will meet North American road safety standards by its release date.
Also, if you’re scoring at home, this is now the second unconventional vehicle to make its way to North America as our native auto industry crumbles like Hans Moleman after that football spiralled into his groin.
However it fares, the ZPM car will now try and team with the Tata Nano as vehicles set on revolutionizing the modern automobile as we know it.
Posted by: Len Mckeary | May 26, 2021 9:26:18 AM
So as I see it we manufacture large equipment to mine and move coal ,then we burn it to make electricity , then use the electricity to compress air and magically we have no emissions .The law of physics dictates that when you change sources of energy you loose 15% . Perhaps we would be better off if we just burned the coal in the car.
Posted by: Alan | May 26, 2021 11:11:35 AM
Couldn't agree more. Besides, if they pressure this thing up to 4500 psi I want to be far, far away.
Posted by: Rich Behm | May 26, 2021 7:39:04 PM
Will they be releasing an air powered wheelchair anytime soon?
Posted by: Dale Ulan | May 29, 2021 9:10:19 AM
Let's see... if I assume I have electricity available... wind power or solar or coal or uranium sourced. It doesn't matter. Charge batteries at about 85% efficiency, through an electric drivetrain at about 90% efficiency, and gearbox / tire efficiency at somewhere at around 93% or so. Wall-to-wheels of about 71%. Most air compressors to those pressures have a thermal efficiency of about 8% - or less. And we haven't started talking about the air motor yet. Batteries are a chemical process. Motors are an electromagnetic process. Compression and expansion of gas are thermodynamic processes. Each of those have different rules and different efficiencies.
4500 psi can be made safe. That's no problem. Certainly natural gas at 4000 psi as a fuel is 'safer' than gasoline.
Each energy conversion step has a different energy loss. Burning coal in a standard steam cycle has an efficiency of around 30-40%, depending on the design of the plant. Burning natural gas in a combined-cycle turbine can achieve a thermal efficiency of 60% which is doing very well. Burning gasoline in a car averages about 15% with peaks as high as 35% - that is because at idle, the efficiency is zero. A diesel engine does better at about 25% average and 42% peak. A horse is worse as it idles all of the time, even when it is in the garage - probably an average thermal efficiency of 2% or 3%.
In the case of energy conversion, you have to look at the duty cycle. Taking the .71 figure from an electrical drivetrain and combining that with a natural gas fired combined cycle generator and distribution losses, you're at about 40% average efficiency with an electric plug-in, well-to-wheels. Gasoline is going to average about 12%, well-to-wheels. You can't build a coal-powered car with an efficiency that approaches that of an electric powered one - even if the electricity used to power it came from coal. Some processes don't scale down well - or at all.
The biggest advantages of an electrical drivetrain is that the initial energy source is 'don't care' and its efficiency. You can generate electricity from a wide variety of sources. If tomorrow, gasoline were no longer available, our transportation system would grind to a halt. If tomorrow, we couldn't burn coal for power, we could build any other electrical generation facility, feed it into the same lines, and every device out there would not care where the electricity came from - it gives you diversity of energy supply and that is worth a lot.
First law of thermodynamics: There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Second law of thermodynamics: You're doing exceptionally well if you get half of what you paid for.
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