AirPod – The Car That Runs On Compressed Air
4 November 2009 | Green Cars | No Comments
In the last days of the gasoline-powered vehicles, the competition for the car of the future is harsh and open for surprises. There is still no definitive winner, although the electric car has won some important “battles”. Yet other technologies await recognition and some attention from the public. For example, the pneumatic-propelled engine technology has taken some major steps towards the big stage.
The AirPod, the chariot-like three-wheel car that runs on compressed air, is the culmination of a father and son work. Guy and Cyril Ncgre , the CEO and R&D coordinator of MDI, a company Guy created, having in mind the protection of the environment. They plan to manufacture it early next year, at a “one vehicle per hour” tempo.
The vehicle has a weight of 220 kilograms and runs on 80 kilograms of air, compressed to 350 bars. The maximum velocity reaches 28 mph (45 km/h) and an estimated range of 137 miles (220 km), if driven in a urban area. The car doesn’t require for the driver to have a driving licence and is steered using a joystick. There is room for 3-4 passengers, with two of them in the backseat, faced backwards. It takes only 3 minutes to re-compress the tank with air and the costs are also very low, only 0.5 euros per 100 km. The car’s exhaust, which is very cold air, could also be somehow used to cool the passengers in the hot summers. The costs of the car rise to about $9,000(€6000).
A big impulse to bring AirPod to life, came when the announcement from January, 2008, by the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, was made. The plan is called Autolib and involves buying 4000 electric cars, for the Parisian people to rent by the hour. The company hopes to convince with they model, which is cleaner, has a longer range and is cheaper than the electric cars.
But there some black clouds have gathered around the company. And they come from IEEE Spectrum, which were addressed to inspect the car’s performances. As it turned out, the MDI company have kinda hyped the car’s actual potential. They question the car’s real range, which should only be a third of what the company claims, because, as they analysed, a great amount of energy is being wasted in the process of expanding the air before it is sent to the engine.
Other barriers constitute the laws of nature. According to some scientists the laws of thermodynamics make the use of compressed air as a power source very unreliable. Also, the AirPod’s 200-liter air tank should not be more potent than one liter of gasoline. The company counters saying they engine doesn’t need that much energy to run.
Tags: airpod, Autolib, car, cheaper, cleaner, compressed air, electric car, energy, Environment, gasoline-powered, Green Technology, Guy Ncgre, IEEE Spectrum, MDI, pneumatic-propelled engine, thermodynamics