Air Cars: A New Wind for America's Roads?

An air-powered car? It may be available sooner than you think at a price tag that will hardly be a budget buster. The vehicle may not run like a speed racer on back road highways, but developer Zero Pollution Motors is betting consumers will be willing to fork over $20,000 for a vehicle that can motor around all day on nothing but air and a splash of salad oil, alcohol or possibly a pint of gasoline.

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Nov 4 2008Coming Soon: The Air Car Pod

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AirPod is Like a Smart Car Full of Hot Air, and That's the Idea

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Tags: air cars, airpod, technology, car, future

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3 Comments

by thisnamecantbetaken on 11-4-2008 3:36 PM

The air tank also can be refilled when it's not in use by being plugged into a wall socket and recharged with electricity as the motor compresses air.

What energy are they going to use to make the electricity?

by ericskiff on 11-4-2008 3:49 PM

The beauty of systems like this is that while electricity generation can be decentralized (local solar/wind/etc), fossil fuel powered transportation cannot.

We have two power problems here - power generation, and making that power mobile. Although fossil fuels address both at once (they generate enormous power and are very portable), decoupling the two through some sort of potential energy storage system such as compressed air is a great step towards reducing our dependence on them.

Additionally, by removing the intermediate step of going from wind power to electricity back to air power, these devices could be even more efficient.

It's a bit oversimplified, but imagine a windmill on the roof of your house that turned a shaft that directly drove mechanical devices like a washing machine, air compressor for your Aircar, etc. Without the 40%+ loss of energy converting to electricity and then the loss during battery storage, not to mention the weight and complexity of transporting batteries, powering your transportation device with truly local power is possible.

by burndata0 on 11-4-2008 4:31 PM

Why wouldn't you just put a small air compressor on board?