Reply #43: It IS a cool car. [View All]

[Gregorian]

As an engineer, I don't do things that are unfeasible. And I have actually worked as a professional engineer for some years. Along with being in cardiology among other things. So I'm not just an anonymous idiot in cyberland. Maybe I don't express myself so that I come across professionally.

Many of the comments on that board are by inexperienced people. I pulled out the couple that exemplify the thermodynamics involved.

Simply put, when a conversion step is used, inefficiency and loss is encountered. Like one of the posters said, why not just add hydraulic motors to each wheel. His point was- why compress air, when one can use the electricity it takes to compress the air, to just simply power a motor? Now when one looks at just the car, it's elegant. It's great. No exhaust. Regenerative breaking. But there are details that kill it. That doesn't mean they aren't pushing the marketing like crazy. I'm sure they are. And we might even see these contraptions. But the future is not in air compressed cars.

In my own shop, I do things that might not make sense. I'm not selling them. I'm not trying to solve world problems.