AutoblogGreen

Lascelles -

in Negre's design, the pressurized air is stored in aerospace-grade tanks made from carbon composite material. Chances are, Tata feels that's far too expensive and wants a cheaper solution - even at the expense of range.

Note that highly compressed air needs to be produced, typically ad hoc at the point of sale. This implies reliable high-amperage electricity drops or, stationary ICEs to run the multi-stage compressor. To ensure useful operating range and safe temperature conditions for the tank material, much of the energy invested in the compressor has to be wasted as heat shed in the intercoolers. This also applies to CNG and CH2G but less so because those fuels have intrinsic heating value.

In other words, the MDI air car concept does deliver zero toxic *tailpipe* emissions but as you can hear, it's loud and not in a Lamborghini way. Also, the well-to-wheels efficiency is almost certainly worse than for a similarly powered conventional vehicle. So its green only if toxic emissions is all you care about.

I think offering a stop-start system for the Tata Nano might well deliver better aggregate results for a lot less. Catalytic converter standards for new four-wheeled vehicles are already much higher in India than they are for the scooters they will displace.

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Yes. You really can't discount the energy that goes into providing the compressed air.

That "pockita pockita" sound has a Willy Wonka appeal to it though.

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"I have real doubts about a release."

Wow, if you have doubts, that is all I need to hear!

PS Who looks to the press for direction?

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I don't get the impression the Air Car will be released in Australia this year - the factory hasn't been constructed yet and the local partner is talking about releasing the engine as a power generation unit as the first step.

I'll have an interview with louis Arnoux up early next week at The Oil Drum and Peak Energy going over some of these questions...

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people will say what about the energy to compress the air? i think it will be less than the energy used to get a tank of fuel in to your car look at the oil process as a whole from the rig drilling transport to the refinery the cracking process transport to the gas station and finally the electric pump that puts the fuel in your car air requires no transport just power to compress it which can which only leaves us the choice where does that power come from?

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i hope they can make it work even as a city commuter because it will improve oil supply and reduce photochemical smog in our cities

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I remember checking out the MDI website a few years ago, and back then they were claiming that they would get 240 km range on one fillup. How did they get that figure? They took a 17 km run in a prototype, then said "the production version will have a bigger tank, and use higher pressure, and will be more streamlined, and have an improved engine, and will be lighter, etc. Each planned future "improvement" was multiplied to the original 17 km run, strettching it out with fudge factors to an incredible 240 km!

The reason for the endless delays? They need development time to to try and get the performance up to within shouting distance of all the hype.

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This is starting to sound more and more dodgy. What about the utilization ratio? I'm not familiar with the efficiency of using compressed air but I found this:

http://www.mntap.umn.edu/energy/compair.htm

"Compressed air is one of the most expensive uses of energy in a manufacturing plant. About eight horsepower of electricity is used to generate one horsepower of compressed air."

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Thye Hadley, Ferral, and Polar air cells determine global weather patterns. Ideally air would be compressed at 67* lattitude [sound] The heat would reinforce the strong up draft needed to send cold polar air back up to 90*. The compressed air tanks would be shipped south and used at 37* where their 40*F cold air exhaust would reinforce the DOWN DRAFT needed to pull the warm Hadley air rising from the equator down and send it back south to be reheated and rise again. Pipelines of compressed air tanks like TSA trays? After use would they unseal, nest, and be sent back up to 67* how?

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"Thin air"/"Apple Air": How much nitrogen and oxygen, etc. is needed to be released into the atmosphere of earth given how many tanks of compressed air in use - in order to keep the total volume of earth's atmosphere thick enough?

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For those who read spanish I am writing on the Air Car in my blog http://espacioexterior.blogspot.com

I am very skeptical about the release of the car, and many people told me the bussiness is to sell "manufacturing licenses" to investors.

Greetings, Heriberto.

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If you are interested to invest in the MDI company, my wife and I are willing to sell some of our shares of MDI. We support financially MDI since 1992 and hold then so 1 % of the capital.
After 16 years we decide to realise a part of our investment !
Our selling price will be less (market oblige) as the last transfers made by M Nègre himself (he held 2/3 of the capital). If you have a serious interest please write us : martinmarschner(at)hotmail.com

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