Could the ‘Air Car’ be a legitimate alternative vehicle?
Articles — By forcechange on December 8, 2008 7:03 pmAt first blush, the Air Car, manufactured by MDI, looks like it could be a great alternative fuel vehicle. This is because it runs on nothing more than compressed air, can travel up to 125 miles at around 70 mph, and could cost less than $5,000.
And while the Air Car may eventually prove to be a viable product, there are numerous downsides, including:
The compressed air is very cold and requires a heat exchanger to warm it up. However, even with the exchanger, in cold climates it could still freeze up;
The refueling of the compressed air container can take up to 4 hours at home. While specialized equipment at service stations could fill the tank in as little as 3 minutes, this would create extreme heat in the tank, which would have to be cooled simultaneously, similar to filling a SCUBA tank;
The tank storage technology is somewhat limited and is not yet proven to be reliable for consistently long distances;
And studies have shown that lithium-ion batteries out-perform compressed air cars by 3x (although one way to improve the air car’s performance would be to make it a hybrid that runs on a combination of compressed air and conventional gasoline).
Others have criticized the fact that the air compression process uses a large amount of electricity that could off-set any gains from not burning gasoline. However, this should not be a deal-breaker, since everyone understands we must clean-up our entire grid to make any electricity-based solution viable. Right now, no cars that use electricity are very clean, since the electricity used to charge the batteries is usually generated from burning coal or natural gas. This problem must be addressed no matter which electric-based solution we adopt.
While MDI asserts that the air car is “safe, doesn’t pollute, doesn’t explode, [is] not poisonous and [is] not expensive,” whether it is practical remains to be seen.
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MDI’s announcements of “production next year” are just hot air. Google “e.Volution” and near the top you will find a 2000 article by BBC on how MDI and Zero Pollution Motors will start selling in South Africa a car that will run 120 miles on 30 cents worth of compressed air. The catch is that this car was supposed to go on sale in 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/988265.stm
Almost every year MDI makes a similar announcement, but never delivers, nor even build a prototype car that meets the specifications.
The only test results MDI has ever published showed their prototype car running out of air after going only 7.22km/4.5 miles. But the innovative marketers at MDI took that abysmal 5 mile range and did a bunch of magic. “We’ll cut the car weight in half, so the range will double”, “we’ll make the engine more efficient, so the range will double again”, “we’ll get a better transmission, so the operating range goes up”, “we’ll ……”. After all of these HYPOTHETICAL improvements, they claim that the actual observed 4.5 miles range before running out of air will turn into 120 miles in production vehicles.
This was back in 2000-2003. To the best of my knowledge, they have NEVER EVER produced even a single prototype that met the specifications of the car they announced for production in 2000 nor any of the many other cars they have announced as “coming soon”.
MDI doesn’t make and sell cars. MDI rakes in investment money from people buying licenses and territorial franchises. In other words, their business model works as long as there are gullible journalists and investors that ignore MDIs abysmal track record and believe MDI’s latest press releases.
Don’t just trust my word. Peruse the archived news clippings on google about “MDI air car production”.
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=MDI+air+car+production&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Or look at the wayback machine of the prototype test results that were on MDI’s website but have been removed;
http://web.archive.org/web/20071011200005/http://www.theaircar.com/tests.html