Air car

[philosophicaldreamer]

Interesting http://news.en.autos.sympatico.msn.c...mentid=5044057

[xc4life]

what the hell??

[philosophicaldreamer]

Look at this http://www.theaircar.com/#

[skibo]

soooo......this is sort of a hybrid where you can either burn fuel to compress air that drives pistons, or just add compressed air directly, and it also has an electric drive system for parking? Seems complicated - and that crazy connecting rod geometry - not sure what that buys it - no work is being done when the piston is stationary.

It's hard to see exactly what they are up to here.

This seems in some ways similar to an old steam switcher locomotive I've seen in a local museum. It has no boiler - you filled it with steam from a stationary source, and it would switch cars until the pressure dropped to some lower threshold - then you would fill it up again. Not a bad solution for servicing a small yard near a factory with an existing steam source.