The electric car killer?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(apriusfan @ Jul 4 2007, 04:08 PM) [snapback]473143[/snapback]</div>

I agree completely, mate. I really don't see global oil production supporting that many additional ICEs. That includes non-conventional sources.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Jul 3 2007, 01:00 AM) [snapback]472127[/snapback]</div>

Interesting way to put it. We're comparing a product that does not exist with a product that existed many years ago (I infer from "classic" you mean the production EVs from the mid 1990's?). Folks use the same argument with fuel cell vehicles. At some point in the future, prices will magically come down, durability will be increased by an order of magnitude, and storage problems will be solved. In the meantime, EVs that we've had on the road for millions of miles... well, they basically suck because they're mired in reality. We can today make a battery car that has way better range than what is proposed here - assuming no liquid fuel input. Add liquid fuel input, and gosh, the range limitation of BEVs goes away just as fast. And cost? We can "propose" any cost we like. Until they are built, we have no idea. We know exactly how much BEVs cost to build... because we've built them. Again - BEVs are mired in reality while the future is nothin but bright for the product that does not exist.

This thing is so cheap and so simple... that it has taken 14 years to get where we are... and we still don't have a real production vehicle. In the early 90's the big car companies had to put some sort of ZEV on the road in short order or face huge fines. In just a few short years, these companies had awesome, viable, full-featured BEVs rolling into customer's garages. The ZEV mandate could have been satisfied with an air car certainly. And if they were cheaper and easier to build - and had the range and reliability required - I'm pretty sure that an air car would have been a better choice to build. But everybody chose to build BEVs. And I guess they are now "classics."

The idea of NOT being able to fuel at home is a deal-killer for me. As is running a loud compressor for many hours/day.

Actually, not quite good *enough* to be true. As others have said, these guys have been around for many years, and have made some pretty wild claims. Many deadlines have come and gone, and there has still been zero product on the road that can match an EV's capabilities. It is an interesting thing. and may have a place - but rendering BEVs useless is not likely to be one of them.

Nowhere here am I saying that BEVs are perfect. Nor do I think they are the end-game. I simply don't believe that an air car - as I understand them - will be a better solution to our transportation problems than BEVs.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Alan D @ Jul 3 2007, 01:12 PM) [snapback]472462[/snapback]</div>

Didn't they address this on mythbusters, the whole "jaws shooting a scuba tank with a gun myth"? A gun made a hole in it, didn't do squat, finally when the FBI guys put some C4 on it to blow it up, what happened is that it cracked open and put a big dent in the side of the metal cargo container they were using as a "shield"... that doesn't sound like much of a force to lift a fire engine 60 feet in the air.

 

This is a very old story. Asserting that someone is going to produce it "as early as next year," is really rather amusing, considering how long they've been saying that, and that they've never had an actual prototype tested by an independent shop. As for "solving" the range issue of EVs, it looks as though actual range on this car will be very significantly less than the range on an EV. As far as fast-charging, forget it, unless there is an infrastructure of super-mega-colossal-massively-high-pressure charging stations. Otherwise figure on plugging the thing in overnight in your garage, just like an EV, but instead of a silent electric charger, you'll have a noisy compressor running all night.

The compressed-air car will probably have performance similar to my Xebra, and nowhere near Darell's Rav4EV. The air tank might indeed be cheaper than batteries, but the range will be a fraction of what you can get with lithium, and maybe not even as good as the lead-acid batteries in my Xebra.

I say the air car is all smoke and mirrors. Come back when there's a car on the lot, ready to buy and drive away, and then tell me what the real-life range, speed, acceleration, and charging time are.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Jul 5 2007, 01:10 AM) [snapback]473373[/snapback]</div>

Would it not make more sense to compare the *potential* of the air car with the *potential* of a battery car? Comparing a battery car that was produced and put on the road in the 90's with something that has yet to be in customers hands tells us very little. Let's compare the *potential* of all technologies to make it relevant. As I keep saying - BEVs are mired in reality while the sky is the limit for any transportation technology that is not in production.

It appears that you have just recently learned of this technology? It has been ready to go "next year" for about seven years now.

I have many, but not the time to list them here. My problem with the whole "we're ready to go" thing is the same we've heard from the fuel cell crowd for WAY the hell too long. Just a few years back GM promised to sell 1 million fuel cell cars by 2010. Oh, and they already had a really great target price. And all kinds of patents and licenses. Just no product.

Bullshit. The expectation that you'd go here is the whole reason I tacked the last paragraph to my initial post. I work very hard to bring a transportation solution into reality that will leave the smallest footprint. That solution must be viable, proven and cost effective. The solution must exist. Today, the only vehicle technology that meets my criteria is the BEV. Tomorrow that answer may be different. I don't defend BEVs, I defend the best transportation technology available.... and at this point, the name of that technology is BEV.

Of course. And that is MY point! In 2009 we could have BEVs that make the 1990 BEVs look like crap. Yet you are not comparing the air car to what BEVs could be today - you are comparing them to what they were 10+ years ago. What's the point in that? Here's a project for you: compare a BEV of the 1990's to an air car of the 1990's. Oops, doesn't work because BEVs are mired in reality. Now add ten years of R&D to both technologies. Where do you put your money?

Please refrain from the assumptions. Sucks the fun right out of this for me. I don't think this is a scam, and I most certainly don't HOPE it is a scam. Do you somehow think that I do NOT want the best technology? I believe that they're honestly trying to create something new and innovative with the air car. And from the discussions I've had, it is obvious that the folks behind the air car truly believe in it. Yet the "on sale next year" promises have been broken year after year after year. I'm all for hoping that they come out with something great. If they come out with something that makes BEVs look pathetic, polluting, limiting or insanely priced for the performance they offer, I'll be all over this - and you'll see me out promoting this technology to the masses. It really is as simple as that. If this tech can be brought to market, and is clean, convenient and viable - who wouldn't love it? Yet again - my goal is to have vehicles available to the market that are viable and proven. At this time BEV wins.

Few things I enjoy more than being baited. <_< You asked for opinion, yet don't seem to want to hear mine - or you assume that I am blind to technological advancement, and anti-everything that is not BEV. Seems that my opinion is then tainted and not valid. And yet you wanted to hear from me. I'm a bit confused.

Hear this: If the air car can live up to its promises, it would be FANTASTIC, and be a huge part of the transportation solution. It has not yet lived up to ANY of its promises however, so I'm not out pushing its merits. I know exactly what BEVs are capable of, and that they have far surpassed many of their promises, and have proved to be a viable transportation alternative TODAY, as well as way back in the 1990's. I have first-hand knowledge of BEVs. I know their limitations and benefits. At this time I'm pushing the merits of BEVs because I try to only bet on the winning horse.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Jul 5 2007, 11:20 PM) [snapback]473875[/snapback]</div>

Well, I disagree with Darell just on this one point. I, for one, think this is a scam. Here's how it works: You select a market category in which everyone is dissatisfied with the present offerings, and in which everyone is thinking about alternatives. You claim to have a product that would fulfill everyone's deepest wishes. If the claims are far-fetched, that's okay, as long as the level of people's desire is intense enough. In science there is a principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; but in marketing there is a principle that if a claim is extravagant enough, some large number of people will fall for it, because they so deeply want for it to be true. You can't fool all the people all of the time but you most definitely can fool a lot of the people most of the time if you offer something they want desperately enough. That's why people buy lottery tickets.

So, to continue: People are deeply dissatisfied over the price of gasoline cars. You make up a product which is just plausible enough that you can build a prototype. Gas costs too much. Today, batteries are expensive and heavy. What's cheap and light? Air!!! Most people cannot conceptualize the basic math (how much air can you actually fit into a tank you can actually build?) so the idea is plausible. You can build an actual prototype. Never mind that it will go 1/5 as far as a battery EV, because people will not understand that the technological obstacles to storing more air are greater than the obstacles to storing more electricity in an EV.

So now you have a fraudulent prototype that people will believe (fraudulent because it cannot do what you are claiming your production model will do, and you are decades away from solving the technological problems) and you announce that your car is ready to manufacture "next year" and all you need is capital.

There will be dreamers who will invest, and you get rich, not on the cars, because you cannot build them, but on the investments. You pay yourself a huge salary out of the investments, and later blame somebody else for problems that prevented production, and you have not even broken any laws.

Bingo. The perfect scam.

I do not hope this is a scam. But I believe it is a scam. I hope I am wrong. But I'm willing to bet $100 that this car, at the promised specs, will not exist a year after they have promised it. Definition: "Exist" means that it's on car lots and you can buy it for less than 150% of the promised price, and some independent outfit has tested it and determined that it has at least 80% of the promised range and not more than 20% over the promised zero-to-sixty time, and not more than 20% over the promised charging time.

Zap is doing something like this with unrealistic promises about a car that does not exist: the Zap-X, but in their case the technology is on the way, and realistic, but the promised price and time line are not.

 

The website says you can fill the air tank at one of their stations in 3 mins. How are they going to fill 90 cf cylinder to over 4000 psi in so little time? Where is the heat going to go? How many cars could a station fill from its banks of stored air until they ran out? Maybe the tank won't explode when in an accident but wouldn't the release of 4000psi through a fracture still be dangerous? In the event of an accident what would stop fittings connected to the high psi from becoming launched through the car and anything else? Just curious.

 

Wait... I'll post after I think some more. And that often takes a L O N G time... I haven't seen my family in a week. Time to get reaquainted.

 

After long and careful deliberation (I'd already spent WAY too long typing a reply that was posted for a short while) I've decided to just sit this one out. My reality has no chance of competing with future fantasy, and I don't have the energy to argue about it, I'm afraid.

I think you have some wonderful points, and that your concern is in the right place. I only wish there could be some actual, supporting product that could do what BEVs can already do - for much less money. And therein lies the rub for me.

Sorry to come back and say nothing. But I don't like to leave things dangling. Now I have closure.

 

I like the idea. Actually, I just like the idea that someone is thinking about alternatives. The successful product will have started with the idea, and this certainly stirs debate and thought, which can never be a bad thing. B)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(koa @ Jul 6 2007, 01:04 PM) [snapback]474139[/snapback]</div>

They'll do it with hose diameter and differential pressure. Theoretically speaking, as long as the source maintains a sufficiently higher PSI than the vehicle's cylinder and the hose can handle the flow volume demands, they can do it.

Unless I'm wrong, the transfer of air from the source tank to the vehicle's cylinder shouldn't generate an excessive amount of heat.

The source tank would be fed by its own compressor, no doubt properly sized to deliver the required load and equipped with ventilation equipment to dissipate the heat it generates. The heat, or at least most of it, goes into the atmosphere...perhaps serving some useful purpose (such as hot water heating) in route, if they build such a function into their design.

As long as that tank is fed by a compressor of sufficient size, it won't ever run out. Even if peak demand were to deplete the tank's air supply, it would only be a temporary condition. The compressor will simply replenish the dispensed air. The tank is merely a buffer to normalize the demands on the compressor and supplement its delivery capacity when peak demand exceeds that rate.

- Justifyd