Compressed air powered cars

Compressed air powered cars

I just ran into this news article and thought it was interesting:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D98DE2M82&show_article=1

One of the quotes was:
Air compressors are one of the least efficient machines to convert electricity to work," said Harold Kung, professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University. "Why not use the electricity directly, as in electric cars? From an energy utilization point of view, the compressed (air) car does not make sense.

This to me sounds like an engineer stuck on one little aspect of the whole process.

Here is a little discussion between a friend and myself on google talk, thought it might start some

me: it may be less efficient, but the storage of compressed air is a lot better than the storage of electricity, the weight difference in driving a vehicle might make up for the lack of initial generation efficiency.... that statement is just engineers getting stuck on one small part of the whole process
friend: yeah true
friend: i really comes down to how much more efficient can air be over electricity
me: not really, if the vehicle is way cheaper than a hybrid but still gets good gas mileage
friend: yeah but they said the cars would run about $20k
me: also, you might only need one engine might be able to run off compressed air and gas... that would reduce the cost even more and reduce weight even more
friend: you can get an electric hybrid for that
me: yeah but electric hybrids have been out for 10 years now, they started at 50's and are now down to 20's
friend: true true

Note: I was wrong though Smiling, the first preus was sold for like 20g's also.

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Aquauto.com = Good Smiling



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