> Russell, whatever happened to storage of energy by compressed > air? Or by inertial energy (a spinning weight) ? Since the > issue for vehicles is really just THAT, storage of energy in > some form. I seem to recall an American city trying > inertially-driven buses for public transportation. > > I know that compressed air is the "starting fuel" of choice > for the starting of ships' huge diesel engines; nothing else > is able to start such huge cylinders, yet a blast of > compressed air turns them over in a twinkling of an eye. > > --Bob claims to be starting production. Again. This time in India - , . As Russell said, the energy density sucks. The obvious solution is to make the car lighter, so they're using carbon fibre. Or maybe hemp. The numbers AirCar hand out are only tell half the story, mixed in with the usual marketing. Lots of "we did this to reduce weight", but they never seem to get around to telling you what the car actually weighs. Oopsie, found it, 550kg for the 'MiniCat', and they claim 200km range per tank. This page states the tank (340 litres & 300 bar) has 52MJ of energy, which it may well do. So, 52MJ will push 550kg of car (+ driver?) 200km. Petrol has ~35MJ per litre, so that's equivelent to about 1.5 litres. Most motorcycles are between 150-200kg. As a reference, I've a fairly ordinary 250cc bike (Honda CB250), 130kg, 16 litre tank, and I can (depending on enthusiam) get 500km out it, or 30km/l. 1.5 litres of fuel will get Bike+Me (say 200kg) 45km. They say they move 600kg some 200km? Well, colour me skeptical. Anyway, given this quote: "The car also has a small compressor that can be connected to an electrical network (220V or 380V) and will recharged the tanks completely in 3 or 4 minutes." they should scrap cars and just make compressors. I wish mine was that good. (ok, probably a typo, minutes is supposed to be hours.) Flywheels are available commercially, these are the ones you drop into a hole in the ground, not power your car. They seem to be marketed as back-up power, or most likely they have provide enough power to run your office until the generators kick in. Tony -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist