[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]Here are some examples of AIR-CARS that are years old:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJeMnZuOOJU (200 Miles per charge, takes minutes to re-fill / 60mph)Watch the video above: A possible $15K car... and perhaps the ability for it to-re compress its own air using... compressed air.This is WHAT we need. No pollution... no gas, no coal, no solar... no wind.[/citation]
For the car to compress the air it runs on via its own air supply would result in a perpetual motion machine. This is impossible. See "Entropy."
If the car requires an electric pump to compress the air, then it doesn't actually run on air, it runs on electricity. Compressed air may be what makes the motor run, but electricity is what compresses the air. I suppose you could ultimately use a man powered crank compressor of some sort, but how much work would that take?
From a general perspective, this may seem like a good idea, but if you think about how the entire system works including the charging, you'll realize this might be less efficient than a car that just runs on electricity.
Each time you convert energy from one form to another, you lose some. For an electric car, you need to change the kinetic electric energy from the wall into potential energy in the battery and then to kinetic energy again when you drive the vehicle. For this Air-Pod, you do the same with an extra step: Outlet electricity to powering the compressor to compressed air then finally to powering the engine.
Compressors give off a LOT of heat (put your hand up near the ceiling behind your fridge. That's heat given off from compression). That heat is lost energy. Batteries give off some heat, but not as much. This means a purely electric car would be more efficient. This concept just *seems* better because they tell you it runs on air.