What goes in an air car?

[NewyorkKopter]

K so I was checking out some air cars like the following...
http://zeropollutionmotors.us/?page_id=54
and yea what exactly goes into the these cars? Do they have cooling systems (radiators, etc.), batteries, ecu's, and what not?

[Moppie]

Just an air compressor working in reverse.

The problem is you have to use energy to compress the air in the first place, and compressing air is not a very efficient use of energy as there is a lot of thermal loss etc.

So they suffer the same problem that electric cars do, the energy has to come from somewhere, and if your in a country that generates its electricity by burning fossil fuels, then it is possible that you still generate a just as large (and sometimes large) carbon foot print.

[curtis73]

Originally Posted by Moppie

Just an air compressor working in reverse.

Exactly. There have been several criticisms of the air car, since it does require rather inefficient energy sources to recharge the air tanks, but there are promising ideas for low-energy air compression using geothermal heat and solar heat.

But Moppie is right... if you use an air compressor plugged into your household electric to recharge your car, you'll use more energy than if you just plugged in to recharge batteries in an electric car.

If you had, for instance, a river or stream nearby, you could tap into the water flow to drive a compressor. Or if you had enough wind in your area you could use a wind turbine to power the compressor.

[MagicRat]

Using compressed air as a power source is an OLD idea.

In the early days of the automobile, some cars used compressed air instead of electricity to power a starter motor.

Also compressed air was used to power navy torpedoes for decades.

[shorod]

And people around my age may remember this toy. I still have mine packed away at my parent's house.

-Rod

[NewyorkKopter]

Tru tru, so about the air in these cars...does it go directly from the tanks into the engine or does it have to be heated or cooled first?

cool toy btw

[NewyorkKopter]

Also these piston air engines do have valves and camshafts, right? Its not like the valves get blasted out of place by the entering compressed air, right?

Oh another thing why didn't they opt for a turbine engine over a piston engine?