Air Powered Car

There is an article about an air powered car that is on the verge of being mass produced in India.  It has a range of 200 – 300 km per fill up and is estimated to cost about $3 per fill up.  Of course, they don't cover the underlying issue of how you get air compressed without using fossil fuels, but that steals all the fun from this article.  The oil, one liter of vegetable oil, needs to be changed every 50,000 km.  Is this yet another stake in the heart of the American car makers?

2 comments

  1. This is really interesting! I decided last year that if my little Camry just keeps on working, I’d postpone getting a new car for a few years and see what else besides the Prius develops. I never expected anything like this!
    Incidentally, what would be the environmental effect of compressing the air?

  2. The environmental effect I referred to was how you generate the power to run the air compressor? Does each station compress their own air or is it delivered? If it’s delivered, what is powering the trucks that deliver it? That’s one of the big sticking points over hydrogen powered vehicles, how do you get the hydrogen? How do they distribute the hydrogen? Bottom line is whether there is a net gain to be had by switching over to running cars on air or are you just shifting the environmental effects. I’ll leave the analysis for those who are much better equipped to make a judgment, I just found it to be an interesting article and something I never thought about.

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