Wouldn’t this be a great way to beat the high cost of gasoline…?
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Could a car run on compressed air?
Yes, it could. You could compress the air at your house using an air
compressor, fill a compressed-air tank in the car, and the car could run off of
it. You could use an engine very similar to a steam engine (using
pressurized air instead of pressurized steam) to convert the compressed air to
rotational energy.
The main problem you would have is the size of the “gas tank” you would need
to get any kind of reasonable range. You would need a LOT of compressed air to
take a car very far.
An alternative would be to use a liquefied gas like liquid nitrogen.
You can think of liquid nitrogen as air that has been compressed so much it has
liquefied. Liquid nitrogen is much denser than compressed air, so you could
store enough in a car to give it reasonable range. You could then fill up at the
liquid-nitrogen station |
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4 responses so far ↓
BPM // May 15, 2007 at 3:02 pm
There is a reluctance (and obstruction?) of the beneficiaries of the status quo in the USA to develop innovations into common usage. This technology is going forward more in other countries. Just Google “cars run on air” and you’ll get over a million sites. Opportunity is knocking for a struggling company such as Chrysler to take the lead and leave the old school companies behind–poetic justice that would be!!
laughingfishauto // June 20, 2007 at 6:21 am
Interesting, too, there is a movement afoot in our Congress now to up the ante and force US automakers to improve MPG by mandate. Love the idea of Chrysler taking the lead… thanks for posting!
richar matchette // March 4, 2008 at 12:45 pm
air car if i make the camshaft run at the same speed as the crankshaft and feed air pressure into inlet manifold will it run r matchette
richar matchette // March 4, 2008 at 12:48 pm
will it run