[Rochr]

and probably not the safest vehicle on the planet, but damn clever.
I want one. I bet it´s fun to drive.

http://www.itmdi-energy.com/news/airpod ... 091008.php

[-Adrian]

the driver steers the AIRPod by controlling the flow of air in each engine

this sounds worse than it is. Quite smart actually.

[Mihai]

What is the efficiency of the air compressors? Compressed air is just a way to store energy it's not a source of energy. I read the best ones get almost up to 50% which means you lose half the energy you used to compress the air. It all comes down to how much energy you put in and how much you get out. Batteries/electric motors are much more efficient, so no matter where you get the energy from, even solar, it doesn't make sense....it's much more efficient to use the electricity directly.

[Carl007]

Nice for innercity folks

But we family fathers with need for Longer transportation on highways an the likes, when will we get our climate-smart stationwagons?

[-Adrian]

I wonder how flywheel driven vehicles would work out, definitely something for the Steam Punk genre.

The cars have massive flywheels with low friction bearing and you tap into that force with your clutch like in a normal car. Once the rpm drop below a threshold you get notified and drive to the next spin-up point (gas station's equivalent) when your car gets rev'd up again by massive engines.

It would also make for fantastic car crashes, hollywood material

[Rochr]

What is the efficiency of the air compressors? Compressed air is just a way to store energy it's not a source of energy. I read the best ones get almost up to 50% which means you lose half the energy you used to compress the air. It all comes down to how much energy you put in and how much you get out. Batteries/electric motors are much more efficient, so no matter where you get the energy from, even solar, it doesn't make sense....it's much more efficient to use the electricity directly.

You´re probably right. Add fuel cells to that. But in many ways air is more practical.
I don´t know what the situation is where you guys live, but here i couldn´t find a gas station where you can fill up with electricity no matter how long i looked. And even if i could it would take an hour or two to recharge the batteries.
Air on the other hand, is available everywhere and with just a few minutes to recharge, it opens up possibilities for longer trips.
If you can live with the speed that is...

Either way, it´s another step in the right direction.

[Mihai]

I don't see it that way.....it's nice to see companies come along and propose different techs, but some of these ideas end up dilluting the whole 'green' machine process. If you take into account also the efficiency of the engines that run on compressed air you end up with a lot of wasted energy. There is also the question of how well those air tanks behave in an accident, if there's one small crack made in it, it goes boom right? So just taking these two things into account I really don't think the air car will in any way replace what we currently drive. Perhaps a few will be bought by the major of some medium sized town to impress the voters and make some publicity and it usually stops there.

[Rochr]

Regarding the explosion risk, it should not be that different from normal air compressors, and these are fairly harmless even with smaller cracks.

Either way, i also doubt it will replace anything available right now, but my point was that it may just be as small step towards something better.

Just take a look at the development of electric cars.
20 years ago, you almost needed a trailer for the battery pack and got pretty lousy performance. Now you can buy a really nice electric car and beat the crap out of the neighbours Ferrari.