The Staton Jones Report

Our buddy, Paul, brought the Air Car to our attention.

This is interesting. I think it is real. Best I can tell, it runs (ideally) on compressed air. The designs they show on the web site appear to have a range of about 60-70 miles if you travel at 30 mph. In order to do this, you must charge the compressed air tanks, which in Europe (with 230V supply) will take about 3 hours for the small 2-seater; in the U.S., it could take considerable longer unless you can tie in to the higher voltage lines in your home, like the ones that electric clothes driers use. I couldn't tell whether there is any regeration from braking; if not, then the range could be extended, but I kind of suspect that they are doing some kind of energy re-capture, so probably not much improvement there.

In general, though, I'm pretty skeptical about such complex mechanical systems. I suspect there are a number of serious issues with, for example, the air filters, which would probably need serious regular
maintenance -- like on a weekly or daily basis, depending on the air quality of one's locale. Air compression just doesn't tend to stack up to any thermodynamic advantages over competing technologies, like pure electric, hybrid electric or even fuel cell, although this is mostly opinion/speculation on my part.

Perhaps most important, one must consider where the energy is coming from, and how efficiently it is being utilized across the entire flow, from source to end use. That compressed air won't be free. I'm trying to imagine what my electric bill would look like if I ran my electric clothes drier for six or seven hours every night, and what changes would be required to the local grid to support *everyone*
in my city doing this every night. Where will that electric energy come from? Currently, most electric energy in the U.S. comes from the burning of coal, which is very dirty. So, someone needs to estimate how the electric power infrastructure must change to accommodate these cars, and then compare that to changes related to competing technologies.

On the web site, they refer to using windmills and river currents to charge the cars. That sounds fine, although I think some serious analysis needs to be done to estimate both the efficiency and the
scalability of that scheme.

In short, it looks kind of nifty, but I'm quite skeptical.

PS Personally, I really like the Twike!