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I posted on a car powered using compressed air previously. Here is a webcast on that car:
More webcasts on the car: Catvolution’s Air Car ride + interview Cyril Negre - CATvolution YouTube webcasts
Related: Aptera Prototype (over 230 MPG) - Car Elevator - Electric Cars
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November 26th, 2008 at 4:17 am
The compressed air is just an energy storage medium. It’s not a ’source’ of energy. It takes energy to compress the air. The energy can then be expended when the air expands through some sort of piston engine (like steam expanding in the drive cylinder of a locomotive).
If you want to have an air-powered engine develop 25 HP for one hour, it will take a 25 HP compressor running at full capacity for one hour to compress enough air to do the job.
In order to get any decent range, it would require a tank either the size of a trailer, or a tank with sufficient wall strength (and thickness) to hold many thousands pounds (psi) of pressure. Hydrocarbon fuels give you better range in an easy to store liquid form, at atmospheric pressure and temperature.
People forget that electric cars died in the 1920’s because gasoline powered cars solved most of the problems inherant in battery storage….. (limited range, no corrossive acid, no fire hazard from short circuits, etc….)