An Air Car You Could See in 2009: ZPM’s 106 MPG Compressed-Air Hybrid
Compressed-Air Powered cars could take you over 800 miles on a single fill-up, at speeds of up to 96 mph. They should refuel in less than 3 minutes, and at speeds over 35 mph emit about half the CO2 of a Toyota Prius. Best part? You could see them in the US at the end of next year.
Car-tech aficionados may already be familiar with Zero Pollution Motor’s (ZPM) compressed-air powered car. For those that haven’t heard of it yet, read on:
“The compressed air vehicle is a new generation of vehicle that finally solves the motorist’s dilemma: how to drive and not pollute at a cost that is affordable!”
What happens when you replace the explosions in your car’s combustion chamber with clean compressed air? Well, as long as you lighten things up by replacing heavier parts with aluminum, you end up with a clean, efficient way to power a vehicle.
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The world’s first commercial compressed-air powered vehicle is currently being produced by India’s largest automaker, Tata Motors, who is licensing the technology from European-based company MDI (a company powered by the innovation of ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre). They anticipate having about 6000 of these vehicles on city streets in India in 2008.
How does an Air Car Work?
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Although potentially revolutionary it really isn’t that complicated. What a compressed-air car does is use the force of super-compressed air to move the engine’s pistons up and down, as opposed to explosions produced from injecting a small amount of fuel.
To get things moving on compressed air, weight reduction is a top priority. MDI’s aluminum-based engine weighs half what a normal engine does, and the frame is also built out of lightweight materials (US version will be aluminum?).
ZPM’s US model will store about 3200 cubic feet of compressed air in carbon fiber tanks at 4500 psi. Carbon fiber tanks are used for safety reasons since they tend to split open (as opposed to explode) when punctured.
Compressed air from the tanks will run directly to the engine under speeds of 35 miles per hour. That means that under 35 mph the car qualifies as a zero emissions vehicle. At higher speeds the engine will burn a small amount of fuel to create more compressed air, sort of like how a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt produces on-the-fly electricity. The hybrid air-car setup should be able use any number of fuels, including gasoline, propane, or ethanol.
1 tank of air + 8 gallons of gas = 848 mile range
The car’s compressed air tank can be refilled in about 3 minutes from a service station. To fill it up at home the car would be plugged in, where an onboard compressor would refill the tank in about 4 hours, at an electrical cost of about $2.
If you aren’t sure whether turning electricity into compressed air is really that clean, here are some numbers: at speeds over 35 mph the air car emits about half the CO2 per mile as a 2007 Toyota Prius (0.141lbs of CO2 per mile, while that the Toyota Prius emits 0.34 lbs of CO2 per mile).
Will we actually see a US-model Air Car in 2009/10?
New York startup ZPM, like Tata motors, has licensed technology from Luxembourg-based MDI. MDI also has plans to release these cars in Europe in 2-, 4-, and 6-cylinder models, starting under $15,000.
Despite lightweight construction that could be of concern for passing US safety tests, it appears that air car technology could be available in the US in late 2009. ZPM told PopularMechanics.com earlier this year that it expects to produce the first US model air car at the end of 2009 or early 2010. (Btw, ZPM’s model is also a candidate for the $10 million Automotive X Prize.)
ZPM wants to produce a 6-seater, 75-hp model with a 1000 mile range at 96 mph, all for just $17,800.
The big question I think we all have is: will this car make it through US safety testing? ZPM’s website says that air car models will meet the same safety specifications of all cars driven in the US. As with most of these new hyper-efficient models we’ve seen (like Aptera’s Typ1 or VW’s 1L Car), ZPM claims the vehicle’s “tubular body provides increased resistance in the event of a crash.” The car will also come with Air Bags and ABS braking.
It’s another case of wait-and see, and we can only hope ZPM follows through.
For more info, check out a great youtube video about air cars (embedded below).
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Posts Related to the Air Car, Hybrid Cars, and Other Vehicles:
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- Aptera’s $26000 Electric Car and 300 MPG Hybrid Coming Soon
- The Cleanest Cars on Earth?: Honda Civic GX and Other Natural Gas Vehicles
- Affordable Electric Cars Coming to US in 2009
- An Electric Car You Can Buy Today: The $20K TRIAC EV
- Clean Diesel Cars Coming to US This Fall: 2008-2010 Timeline
Photo Credit: Zero Pollution Motors
Is there a way to compress a meaningful tankful of compressed air, say, enough for 30 miles at 30 mph, using small force sources? For example, a millstream of water running at 50 gallons/minute or a few solar panels.
How about a step gap measure - between a 4 hour home charge to compress the tank and the iffy chance of finding a 3 minute refill at a high pressure roadside station? For instance, by charging the “onboard compressor” so that it can discharge its “pre-load” at the flick of a switch to extend the range of the vehicle.
i apreciate ur R & D division they r doing great job.
Although i think the engine in the second half of the video should be implemented, rather than the traditional cam timed crap… at least we’re getting somewhere. If the inventor of the rotary hasn’t contacted the implementers of the air cam timed shit engine yet, then i’m sure he will sooner or later, or vise versa.
The price is EXTREMELY reasonable… so i don’t know what some of you retards are trying to say… it’s takes just as much to build one of these cars as it does a combustion driven car, void the emission control components. Please don’t forget to take into consideration that these cars aren’t being built in factories that have been around as long as chevy. they haven’t quite gotten down the procedures it takes to build a car in an hour.
chevy’s cobalt starts at 10,000 dollars or so… and i would estimate that it takes around 7 hours to build one car. it probably takes MDI 10 DAYS to build one car, because they’re a relatively new company… so calm down, shut the fuck up, and watch. by the time the 800mile/fillup car comes out, they’re going to be producing the same as the big companies, and the prices are going to be VERY low.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the base model is 3,000 dollars by the time it’s all worked out.
just like the good ol’ days.
“They said… Are they considering the amount of pollution produced by a power plant in order to compress the air to start with? I mean it sounds like a nice idea, and maybe it is too good to be true, but air doesn’t compress itself.
And I say, use wind power, the Dakotas, all the way down to Texas. Over there in Western Europe over 50 percent and (I think) in some areas as much as 80 percent of the energy produced is alternative energy. C’mon guys! Y’know all y’have to do is use your head! Quit asking such stupid questions!!!!!!!!!!!!”
not only are you right, but the people you are responding to are STUPID.
it doesn’t necessarily take any power from a “power plant” to compress the air. cut out one day of weed-whacking, use that motor(let it spin the same amount of revelations as you would’ve that few hours of weed-whacking) to turn a compressor to fill your tanks, and you can drive for a few weeks one the air that you’ve compressed. (I estimate)
we’re so close to perpetual energy anyway that if you environmentally minded people cared so much… you could (on top of reverse gear breaking(the inertia of your car being used to generate electricity), coasting power(and again, the inertia of your car being used to generate electricity) little turbines(being driven by the wind, AND the movement of your car)) just turn a crank for 10 minutes… oh but then you might be worried about the amount of calories it would take to turn that crank. and how many carrots that would kill.
we overproduce as a species… we’re bad at estimating how much of anything we will need after we put it together. so why not start using it?
ethyl alcohol= anything with a sugar base+some yeast + heat(to distill)
we have plenty of sugar based shit laying around that we don’t use. we can probably produce more ethanol out of the stuff we have laying around on an every day basis, to run our world. unless we start using what we waste to help other countries (which we should)
air power= propeller + the natural movement of the earth + cost of materials to maintain the electrical system.
the earth is going to be spinning for as long as we’re a race of sentient beings… (unless of course we evolve beyond this existence.) in fact, the earth has scientifically been proven to be accelerating in it’s rate of rotation. so logically, with the doubling of our technology every 10 years, we would be able to compensate with any discrepancies.
perpetual= energy output remains the same without any input of energy.
we have not yet achieved this, although it has been claimed. but we have come pretty close.
we’re so close in fact, that i would venture to say;
if we had a few thousand strong men (paid well) peddling away to create enough energy to fill the gap of power lost, we would be at 95% efficiency which would make up for the amount lost(not taking into account calories burned by them. which would be a lot less than the heat lost by the machinery of today.) If you don’t believe that we’re this close… look around youtube for natural magnet engines, and calculate them to be larger scale. you’ll be surprised.
my main point: you’re all retarded.
P.S.
I didn’t proof read my previous two posts before i submitted them… so please excuse any grammatical errors, and try to understand what is being said.
“I love that alternative, efficient, and cleaner automotive technologies are being brought to production (or at least seeing the light of day), but for goodness sake, can they spare a designer for the project?
The main objection I have against alternative fuel vehicles is that they almost always look faux-futuristic and, to be honest, ugly.
I know that certain shapes are good for aerodynamics, but there have been cars built with good lines that are also low drag.
Is there some conspiracy that is keeping car companies from making a visually appealing alternative fuel vehicle? Maybe, but if Tesla can make a halfway decent looking electric, this ZPM company should be able to as well.”
jesus christ people…. all i’ve been reading throughout all of the comments left, are complains about concept cars looking weird, being able to achieve the same with electricity, and the ride not being as comfy because of the lightweight frame.
shut… up. you’re all stupid.
first of all… when you’re driving to work, are you looking at yourself driving your car? no. so why care about what you can’t see.
second of all, the claim that electric cars are just as efficient is FALSE. first of all, if we were to replace all of the cars on the planet with electric, or air powered, take this into consideration:
i’d say that a good enough battery to match three air tanks would run you 4-5 thousand dollars, compared to 3 hundred dollars for a CF tank.
lets say there are 1 billion cars on the road:
that’s an average of four hundred and fifty trillion dollars($450,000,000,000,000) just in batteries alone to replace all of the combustion cars with electric cars.
now lets compare that to the three hundred billion ($300,000,000,000) it would take to convert combustion to air.
450000000000000
-300000000000
—————
449700000000000
it would cost our world (given the ratio of cost is accurate) four hundred and forty nine trillion, and seven billion dollars more to convert to electric than it would air. and that’s just taking into consideration the cost of fuel tank replacement. electric motor maintenance is more frequent, because of the coils. and it is more difficult to produce, and store electricity than it is to compress air.
I would venture to say that one combustion stroke of a 350hp engine could spin a properly weighted flywheel as much as it would take to fill 1/32 of one of those tanks. so 32 compression strokes to fill one, 96 to fill them all. that’s 384 strokes of a 350hp engine with a properly weighted flywheel.
you wouldn’t even be using an 1/16 gallon of gas, or even one full minute of your time, to fill the tanks.
this is why air cars make such good hybrids.
I feel like nobody watched the second part of the video. palm sized engine, same power….
I want know some more details about it.I think this will help me a lot to proceed me. I am waiting for your response. Thank you very much.
I wonder what some folks level of comprehension is.
The compressed air is safe, that is one reason why they use carbon fiber tanks. They are light, super strong, but if ruptured they don’t explode, they crack and lose pressure.
It does not run on CO2, some is produced when it heats the air to be able to drive over 35 and it increases distance. That is what the heater is for in the illustration. The article is misleading, the engine DOES NOT burn fuel, the heater does to expand the air going to the engine, therefore increasing its pressure going to the engine.
The home air compressor can be powered many ways. Air, solar, fuel, electricity or even water power. We have two dams in my town on a river, one owned by the city and the other by a private business. If you are lucky enough to have a flowing water source, there you go.
I’ve seen the head of Tata Motors at a car show talking about their involvement with this car. They do not sell them yet, they are going through testing for crash worthiness, just like they’d have to do coming in the US.
Vehicles have been sold, not the cars yet. Air powered vehicles are used in some factories that normally use LP driven lift trucks or golf cart type vehicles to get around the factory.
Under $15,000! Nice, but at what price would America be able to buy them? Also, why does the car have to be so very very ugly?