Air Cars?
 

AMAZING AIR CAR FROM INDIA

This is the same company which a few months back-invented a car that costs only $2500 new. BUT it's not available in the USA . Why is it that a gasless vehicle that eliminates the reason to buy oil from foreign countries hasn't even been noticed by US manufacturers? How bad can this be for anybody, anywhere in the world -- except, perhaps, for the oil tycoons?



AMAZING AIR CAR!




The Compressed Air Car, developed by Motor Development International (MDI) Founder Guy Negre, might be the best thing to happen to the motor engine, and people all over the world.

The $12,700 CityCAT, one of the planned Air Car models, reaches 68 mph, goes for a range of 125 miles. It will take only a few minutes for the CityCAT to refuel at gas stations equipped with custom air compressor units. MDI says it should cost only around $2 to fill the car up with 340 liters of air!

The Air Car will be starting production soon, thanks to India 's TATA Motors.

Forget corn! Corn-based ethanol is a joke......

Here's a user friendly, pocketbook friendly fuel! What can be better than air?

6-seater taxi should be available in India in 2008:

I resent it, but can see why jobs are going to India and why we are importing

people from India to do jobs that Americans CAN'T or WON'T!

But I can't see why we have the most unfriendly energy congress in

U.S. history, or why they waste time fussing and fighting while we suffer.............


I received this email complete with pictures and thought that it had to be a joke. However I have been looking into it and it appears that there may be something to this. I wonder if our government will try to kill this due to big oil pressure.
I read about cars capable of 90 mph and distances of 800 to 1,000 miles per fill-up.
My first thought is that finally the future is here. I grew up reading about all the technology we would have by the year 2000, but it seems big-oil has been successful in holding us up in a pre-War World technology when it comes to transportation since it is an economical boon for them.
What do you think?

Re: Air Cars?
 

TATA just bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford.

That $2500 car is a piece of junk no American would be caught dead in. Oh wait, you probably would be caught dead in it on our highways!

The expectations of quality and features in the developing world is quite different from Western countries. There is a reason that car only cost $2500.

The air car is intersting but we will just have to see. I am guessing it is a tiny tin bucket with no safety features or room. I will do some research on it. I am a car buff. I subscribe to Motor Trend, Car & Drive, Road & Track, and Automobile magazine.

Re: Air Cars?
 

Here is a link to a Popular Mechanics article this past February about the air car;

http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...s/4251491.html

Re: Air Cars?
 

I posted about the Air Car some time ago. Rico and I had a nice conversation about it.

Tata motors is looking at having the 6 person van for sale in the USA in 2009 for $15,900.

That car will have an 8 gallon gas tank that will be used to power a compressor. the range would be over 1,000 miles.

There hasnt been a massive conspiracy by oil companies to get these types of technologies to market. that is simply nonsense. The fact is these new technologies are very difficult and have only recently become viable.

The Air motor is difficult because compressed air cools as it moves thru the engine, as it cools, it looses density thus reducing its compression power. Only recently did Tata work out details in sustaining compression and temp. thus making the motor viable as a power plant.

Additionally the composit material needed to create a high pressure air tank had to be invented before you could safely have a vehicle that would essentially sit on top of a high pressure bomb!

beyond all of that technology is every expensive to get to. R&D isnt cheep. bottom line with so many of these things is, they arent economically viable when gas is below $3.00 per gallon. only now that gas has risen so high, are these other technologies becoming viable.

and and and,

Re: Air Cars?
 

Thanks for the link.

A big question is this: Honda just released a Civic which runs on compressed natural gas. The tank takes up half of the trunk and is compressed to 3500 PSI's. The range is about 220 miles per tank. Now how can a tank of JUST AIR get better then a large tank of highly compressed gas which is both under compress AND highly flammable in its own right?

http://autos.yahoo.com/honda_civic_g..._availability/ <---Civic GX Natural Gas car

Re: Air Cars?
 

RandyWayneBobJeffHenry,

I agree that I am very leery about the viability of this technology. I hope it works as advertised but I will be surprised.

Of course how many Americans will be happy with a 75 horsepower car is an unknown! I would imagine city folks just commuting would be fine but that seems pretty weak for interstate travel.

Ferd,

The Popular Mechanics article from February does not list Tata as the company wanting to make these in the USA. It coud be a subsidiary though.

Re: Air Cars?
 

how? physics. gas generates power by combution, not compression.

the power plants of these 2 vehicles are vastly different.

On another note, MIT just released this week, they are getting very close to being able to use solor power to generate hydrogen gas from water via electorlisis at a VERY cheep rate.

that would be very cool.

Re: Air Cars?
 

I read it wrong. Zero Pollution Moters
http://zeropollutionmotors.us/

is producing the car for America. by the way I saw Guy Negere (the inventor) on CNN with Glenn Beck a month or two ago. He is really serious about entry into the American market.

Re: Air Cars?
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_vehicle

I had read this article on Wikipedia that discussed some of the potential advantages and disadvantages. There does seem to be some potential and promise.
I may just be a conspiracy theorist or overly cynical of big business, but I just find it hard to believe that we can make the unbelievable strides in every other area of our lives and technology that we have in the last 100 years...except this one.

Re: Air Cars?
 

We have made incredible strides.

We now have V8 engines that get 25 mpg like my wifes Lincoln Town Car when thirty years ago that same size engine / car got about 8-9 mpg.

That is about 3 times the gas mileage of thirty years ago with much more reliability, comfort, ease of maintenance, etc.

Re: Air Cars?
 

yes we have, and it aint ever enough for the controlling people who want to legislate our lives to us, i drive a suburban, 4 yrs now, always wanted one, love it, 20 hwy, 14 city, sometimes i think of trading but nah, lol

Re: Air Cars?
 

Yes, but it is all with the same fuel technology that I could run a Model T off of. I don't think that it is a stretch to consider that since this is perhaps the single most profitable industry in the world, and entire economies are constructed on it, there may be a vigilant desire to keep that part the status quo.

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that has to be true ttstew for sure, entire states live off the car industry, lol

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I can't say I agree with you on this, CC1. The V-8 in your wife's car is a very small V-8, comparable with the 289 Ford produced back in the late 60s. Those smaller V-8s got around 20-22 miles per gallon. It wasn't until the government started sticking their big nose in how manufacturers build their cars that gas mileage started going way down. A 70s era 302 still got around 17 mpg. The engines used in the Lincolns of that time frame were big V-8s, like the 460 and 400. Those larger V-8 engines were horrible on gas and still are. I could buy a brand new 3/4 ton truck, with a big V-8 and I wouldn't get much more than around 15 mpg out of it. The older 3/4 ton trucks got around 12 or so. The real advances have been in getting more power out of a smaller engine. That's why that 4.6 liter V-8 will propel that Lincoln of hers off the line and down the road much faster than the same size engine would have done in a comparably sized Crown Vic from 30 years ago.

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I would love to have a Suburban myself. They are the perfect family vehicle, after a full sized van.

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i like mine very much rico, i will have to give you a ride to the lake sometime, room for both of us and the snacks, lol

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Are you also as upset that you still light your home with the same electricity that was conceived over 100 years ago?

Are you knocking the power companies for not finding something better than electricity?

Re: Air Cars?
 

We owned a brand new 1975 Ford Granada with a small V8 and it did not get anywhere near 17 mpg! Neither did our 1968 Plymouth Fury III with a 318 V8.

A new Pontaic G8 with a 6.1 or 6.2 litre V8 has 361 horsepower and gets around 24-25 mpg while a 360 hp muscle car from the 60's or early 60's would get about one third that.

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Bro, the problem with the internal combustion engine, is that it is very inefficient. the heat loss is extreme. heat is the energy that cannot be converted into a usable form. this is the issue with any internal combustion engine.

You also run into issues with likeability. In the early 80's diesel engines were the rage, but they were loud and produced a lot of smelly exhaust. people didn't buy them even though they were much more efficient.

It wasn't until VW advanced the technology to deal with the noise and exhaust that diesel has again become popular.


Currently there is an X prize competition to produce a 100mpg car. any short look will prove that this is a very difficult thing to do. But it looks like we are now moving in that direction.... but we are only now doing so because it has only been in the last few years that the underlying technologies have advanced enough to be leveraged

Lithium Ion batteries are just now getting close to being viable.
light weight composite material has just gotten to the point where it is strong enough to use for extensive portions of a car without losing safety.
Bottom line here, they guy that can create a car that will comfortably get a family around at 100 mpg, is going to be an instant multi-billionaire. Oil companies cant stop that.

Re: Air Cars?
 

... On the subject of electricity.... did you know that there is now talk about restructuring electricity delivery to DC?

DC is vastly more effecient and can be transmitted over long distances. AC cant be transmitted nearly as well.

the problem is, when you are talking about alternative energy, both wind and solar are most available FAR from most centers of population.

we need to rebuild the transmission systems to support DC power. AC will stil be used at the point of service, but DC for collecting and moving it from one place to another.

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bring on the horsepower, varoooommmm, lol love my v8, suv, lol

Re: Air Cars?
 

Every 302, 318, or small block 350 I have ever owned has gotten between 15-18 miles per gallon, unless they were in a 3/4 ton truck. Those older, pre-emission control V-8s, unless you are talking about a big block (360, 390, 396, 400, 460, 454, 440, etc.), were pretty good on gasoline. The engine in your wife's car is closest to the old 289s they used to put in the Mustangs back in the late 60s.

Re: Air Cars?
 

This is one area where the car manufacturers sure have made some improvements. I remember when it was a big deal for a car to have 250 hp. These days that isn't hardly anything. I test drove a Chevy truck, before they downsized the 5.7 liter engine, and that thing threw me back in the seat when I mashed the pedal to the floor! It downright scared me! It used to be you had to have a 440, or something like it, to get that kind of power.

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yeah, i agree, aint it cool, the sub i own can cruise at a 100 mph and feels like the wind, lol

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I have a grand prix GTP. Its a 2000 and while it isnt what it once was, I LOVE this car!

I plan on keeping it till it falls apart. It has a modified airplane engine.

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The principle of electricity is still the same, but in the last 100 years we have learned many ways to generate that electricity and different cities and different parts of the world do reflect that. I also believe that electricity would be a much more difficult thing to radically transform since it involves a tremendous infrastructure, lines, transformers, etc.... not to mention the wide variety of houses and the ages of houses. How many people do you know who drive a car that is well over 100 years old? :)

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the primary methods of electric production remain about the same as they were 100 years ago.

AND electricty relies on the same oil/gas/coal companies you are talking about.

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yeah i am seriously considering holding on to my truck till hell freezes over, lol, jk, go gmc, lol

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There has been development in the areas of electricity generation. The first power plants were run by water power or coal. We still do rely on coal some but also use petroleum, natural gas, nuclear power, some solar power, and some wind power.

I also think that progress in fuel for vehicles can't even be compared to progress in housing grids. The amount of people who are buying cars made in the 2000's so far outnumber the amount of people living in houses made in the 2000s. Implementing newer technologies with vehicles is just not the same to me.

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It's a GMC? You definitely have a nice ride, Bro.

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Stew, did you hear about plans to construct an underwater generating station in the Gulf of Mexico?

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In the not too distant past I have read stories about cars powered by compressed air and they all seem to get anywhere from 15 to 30 something miles per tank. Too hear several hundred (or a 1000 for a gas powered/air powered hybrid) seems somewhat unbelievable.

Compressed air is really a form of kinetic energy. In effect, it is not much different then powering a car on a giant rubber band, which is wound up by a super-rubberband-winding-machine at the filling station. It's actually extremely efficient, except there is no way to store large amounts of energy for those long trips.

Chemical methods (fuel or batteries) are capable of energy storage orders of magnitude greater than mechanical (and nuclear is order of magnitudes beyond chemical).

Re: Air Cars?
 

Right! the thing these guys have figured out is how to not lose energy by the air cooling.

I guess the thing here is the small gas powered compressor is vastly more effecient than a gas engine. I really think this one is going to work. they are fully invested in winning the X prize in 2010.

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If you read the wikipedia article on Air Vehicles and some other legitimate sources you might find it a little more legit. I was very skeptical when I first read the email.

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The good news is there is a time line on this one. they plan on having this car in America, in production by 2009. we have a year to see if there is truth here. But I am with you on this one.

Re: Air Cars?
 

I know that you think I'm just a big conspiracy theorist, but I am glad that with the internet and other forms of mass information sharing, this thing can become big outside of the traditional channels. I have to say that I am not necessarily saying that I blame big oil for doing what they are doing. They spend a lot of money on their lobbyists and their relationships with the powers that be, and the certain kinds of technology could destroy them.

Re: Air Cars?
 

Tools like the internet allow you to keep up with the latest no matter who may not want you to, do your own investigations, and not have to rely on newscasts and talking heads. In the past we may not have gotten raw data without spin or agendas.

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My husband said if we are going to save on fuel....I need to start flying my broom.....he said I will get BIG air.


:thwak

Re: Air Cars?
 

Make sure his mashed taters are cold and the gravy is extra lumpy for about a week. That should fix it. :D

Re: Air Cars?