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46 comments on The Air Car Part 2 - Q & A With Louis Arnoux of IT-MDI
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I think the range and so on are fine. My main concerns are two.
Firstly, as my back-of-envelope calculations showed, if the compressed air is supplied by electricity got from coal-fired stations (and that's more than half world electricity today), then the per kilometre emissions are about the same as the average Western car. So you're just moving the emissions from tailpipe to a chimney somewhere.
Of course that could be easily solved by using renewable energy, so this is just another demonstration of the "there is no single solution" principle. We need to do a few things in combination to solve our problems.
Secondly, and really more importantly, these guys are always just about to mass produce the thing, but it just doesn't happen. Now, the boss naturally blames everyone else, but you have to wonder - is every potential investor narrow-minded, stupid, and unable to appreciate their supposed genius? How many countries have they been to, how many people have they spoken to? Is it more likely that all those people were stupid, or that something about the company or the design puts them off?
Is there some fundamental flaw of the car's design or the company's organisation that has caused this long delay? In other words, do they have their shit together?
I totally agree with the sentiments expressed in your second point. However, in regard to the range and so on I have grave doubts. It appears the only source for these ‘facts’ are the company’s various websites and I have major concerns about a company that is linked to, or produces, a website like http://www.thefuture.net.nz/index.htm. By the way, I really like Louis’s conspiracy theory arguments as to why the car is not rolling off production lines around the world and his typical marketing response to questions on crash testing, etc.
Talking about getting their shit together, people might also like to take a look at some of Louis’s other ventures. A good starting point is http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2001/0216.shtml from there go to http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10115833.
I don’t have the right sort of technical background in this area and I may be completely off track but I’m hoping some technically minded poster can point me in the right direction.
• It would seem to me that if a full tank is at a pressure of 30 bar this pressure would reduce as the volume of air in the tank reduced, is this so?
• Is it feasible for an engine of this type to compress air to 30 bar with the only energy source being an external heat source?
If it's an Ericsson cycle, you could theoretically use the energy input to pump up the pressure in the reservoir. That's what happens to an Ericcson motor with no external load.