Electric GEM Car

Sam said:
Thank god for that! Are you sure about 35? 35 seems high to me. 25mph would be more reasonable.
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Yes I'm sure, as I said in my post I was serious about buying an NEV and talked to city officials after I found the regs online. But the laws/regs may be different all over the country/world...
 
I came across this today.
GM to show EN-V mobility device at CES 2011 | The Car Tech blog - CNET Reviews

Built on the Segway technology. I found another article saying it would have a 25 mile range, and 35 miles an hr. Now if the price is cheap enough it would be a perfect vehicle for this area.
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Electric vehicle for ER
 

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If you can get that thing in a two seat model and 35 mph, sign me up!

Rich,
I agree, however, I figured there had to be some sort of ventilation system, windows that go up or down. The one you posted would work for about 8 months out of the year around here, but it sure looks cold for winter! Maybe there are some removable panels we don't see. Still I'll bet they put a $15,000 price tag on it and wonder why it does not sell!
 
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MDI COMPRESSED AIR CAR | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

This type of vehicle could be a possible solution. With compressed air you don't have the problem with replacing the batteries. I saw a proto type car many years ago at an energy fair. I don't think they took off because the gas car has so much better range and speed. But compaired to electric they look pretty good.
 
sure looks like the stress point on that thing might be exceeded! I guess you have to have the weight up front to counter the second seat!
 
Lazarus said:
MDI COMPRESSED AIR CAR | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

This type of vehicle could be a possible solution. With compressed air you don't have the problem with replacing the batteries. I saw a proto type car many years ago at an energy fair. I don't think they took off because the gas car has so much better range and speed. But compaired to electric they look pretty good.
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On what basis? And if that was true, why isn't there more development on this, or product releases from Nissan, GM, Toyota, Honda?

I've been reading about MDI, but you never seem to be able to actually buy a car. Hmmm....

Motor Development International - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

according to wiki, they have basically been promising to go into production 'later this year', since 2000.

One of the problems with compressed air, is the air is heated as you compress it. Unless you can contain all that heat (think overnight charge in cool/cold weather), it is wasted energy. And then it gets very, very cold upon decompression, and you have freezing problems.

UPS or FedEx was doing a trial, using compressed air as the short term storage for regenerative braking. Same concept as a Prius, but with air in place of batteries. The air pushed oil through a hydraulic 'motor', and the oil cycled back & forth. Haven't read anything lately on it, might be worth a google.

-ERD50
 
From Edmunds inside line:
2010 MDI AIRPod First Drive on Inside Line


"As for the 2010 MDI AIRPod, it remains a promising work in progress. Improvements need to be made to drown out the engine din, cushion the ride and decrease the sauna effect in the cabin. Performance and range also need to be improved if customers are to use an air car for anything more than work duty or slow urban driving."

Does not sound like it is ready for prime time yet.
 
Compressed air car - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pretty well covers the pro's and con's of the technology. They say somewhat lower efficiency than electric cars.

However they don't have an economic comparison. My concern is the cost of replacement of the batteries. I do not think thats a problem with the air tanks.

It may well be that the total cost of ownership would be lower.

I have never seen anyone using an electric car in my life either.

Wonder if any homebuilt air cars are out there?
 
Lazarus said:
Compressed air car - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pretty well covers the pro's and con's of the technology. They say somewhat lower efficiency than electric cars.

However they don't have an economic comparison. My concern is the cost of replacement of the batteries. I do not think thats a problem with the air tanks.

It may well be that the total cost of ownership would be lower.

I have never seen anyone using an electric car in my life either.

Wonder if any homebuilt air cars are out there?
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I'll tell you one place that I think air engines might be a very good idea - lawn services.

They use these really dirty gas engines, no catalytic converter, etc. And they need a truck to take them from place to place. Mount a couple air tanks on the truck, fill them up overnight, and refill from a PTO from the truck engine. Or maybe just while driving, with a 'fifth wheel' on the trailer, so you wouldn't need to mess with the vehicle? Then you'd be refilling from a relatively clean source with all those pollution controls. Seems better than trying to clean up a million lawn tractors and weed trimmers (yuk - two cycle!) and leaf blowers. Overall efficiency probably isn't that big a deal, wrt the cleaner air.

IIRC ,pollution-wise, running a lawn mower one hour a week was worse than commuting with a car for the entire week.

-ERD50
 
Lazarus said:
Here you go. Compressed air powered lawn mowers.
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Thanks for posting, looks like a fun little hobby/tinkering project. I'm sure that a commercial, engineered one would be much more efficient and effective (was the grass even getting cut?). And again, lawnmowers don't need to be so optimally efficient, it's not so much a power efficiency thing, it's about reducing the disproportionately large amount of pollution from these devices. It just seems like air, compressed from a motor plugged in a socket, or pumped from a modern vehicle would be a relatively simple way to reduce the pollution from lawnmowers, even with the losses along the way.

In the 70's, GE produced an electric lawn tractor. I'd consider this for home use, but then I'd have expensive batteries with maintenance issues sitting unused 99.45% of the time. An air tank seems much more practical. And you'd have a portable device for filling tires, running air tools, etc.

I really do think there is a commercial application for these - maybe MDI should focus on that market and actually ship something?

-ERD50
 
ERD50 said:
I'll tell you one place that I think air engines might be a very good idea - lawn services.

They use these really dirty gas engines, no catalytic converter, etc. And they need a truck to take them from place to place. Mount a couple air tanks on the truck, fill them up overnight, and refill from a PTO from the truck engine. Or maybe just while driving, with a 'fifth wheel' on the trailer, so you wouldn't need to mess with the vehicle? Then you'd be refilling from a relatively clean source with all those pollution controls. Seems better than trying to clean up a million lawn tractors and weed trimmers (yuk - two cycle!) and leaf blowers. Overall efficiency probably isn't that big a deal, wrt the cleaner air.

IIRC ,pollution-wise, running a lawn mower one hour a week was worse than commuting with a car for the entire week.

-ERD50
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Yep, absolutely, lawn mowers are awful polluters.
Problems I have heard with compressed air is the amount of power it takes to compress the air.

Since compressed air lawnmowers don't exist yet, I have electric. Good solution for now, but the compressed air would definitely have advantages if they can get the efficiency under control.
 
Plug in Prius ran only 6 miles on electric!

Three hundred pounds of batteries to replace the energy of maybe a half gallon of gas. And the electric motor has to drag the gas motor around under electric power then the gas motor has to drag the electric and the 300 pounds of batteries under gas power. Not the model of efficiency.

Prius plug-in stutters in bitter cold - Video - Technology
 
Not sure why anyone is doing work on air cars, from the wiki posted here (and consistent with what I've read and heard). And solar or wind powered compressors make even less sense, at least in our lifetimes most likely.
The overall efficiency of a vehicle using compressed air energy storage, using the above refueling figures, cannot exceed 14%, even with a 100% efficient engine—and practical engines are closer to 10-20%.[6] For comparison, well to wheel efficiency using a modern internal-combustion drivetrain is about 20%,[7] Therefore, if powered air compressed using a compressor driven by an engine using fossil fuels technology, a compressed air car would have a larger carbon footprint than a car powered directly by an engine using fossil fuels technology.
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