Automobiles // Current TV

Obama Asks Bush to Back Rescue of Automakers - washingtonpost.com

Learn how to make cars or get out. President-elect Barack Obama yesterday urged... more

pokesmot
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Ford Loses $129 Million, Burns $7.7 Billion

Ford Motor Co. says it lost $129 million in the third quarter as the struggling... more

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Air cars: A new wind for America's roads?

A new carmaker has a plan for cheap, environmentally friendly cars to be built all over the country

An air-powered car? It may be available sooner than you think at a price tag that will hardly be a budget buster. The vehicle may not run like a speed racer on back road highways, but developer Zero Pollution Motors is betting consumers will be willing to fork over $20,000 for a vehicle that can motor around all day on nothing but air and a splash of salad oil, alcohol or possibly a pint of gasoline.

The expertise needed to build a compressed air car, or CAV, is not rocket science, either. Years-old, off-the-shelf technology uses compressed air to drive old-fashioned car engine pistons instead of combusting gas or diesel fuel to create a burst of air to do the same thing. Indian carmaker Tata has no qualms about the technology. It has already bought the rights to make the car for the huge Indian market.

The air car can tool along at a top speed of 35 mph for some 60 miles or so on a tank of compressed air, a sufficient distance for 80% of consumers to commute to work and back and complete daily chores.

On highways, the CAV can cruise at interstate speeds for nearly 800 miles with a small motor that compresses outside air to keep the tank filled. The motor isn't finicky about fuel. It will burn gasoline or diesel as well as biodiesel, ethanol or vegetable oil.

This car leaves the highest-mpg vehicles you can buy right now in the dust. Even if it used only regular gasoline, the air car would average 106 mpg, more than double today's fuel sipping champ, the Toyota Prius. The air tank also can be refilled when it's not in use by being plugged into a wall socket and recharged with electricity as the motor compresses air.

Automakers aren't quite ready yet to gear up huge assembly line operations churning out air cars or set up glitzy dealer showrooms where you can ooh and aah over the color or style. But the vehicles will be built in factories that will make up to 8,000 vehicles a year, likely starting in 2011, and be sold directly to consumers.

There will be plants in nearly every state, based on the number of drivers in the state. California will have as many as 17 air car manufacturing plants, and there'll be around 12 in Florida, eight in New York, four in Georgia, while two in Connecticut will serve that state and Rhode Island.

The technology goes back decades, but is coming together courtesy of two converging forces. First, new laws are likely to be enacted in a few years that will limit carbon dioxide emissions and force automakers to develop ultra-high mileage cars and those that emit minuscule amounts of or no gases linked with global warming. Plug-in electric hybrids will slash these emissions, but they'll be pricey at around $40,000 each and require some changes in infrastructure -- such as widespread recharge stations -- to be practical. Fuel cells that burn hydrogen to produce only water vapor still face daunting technical challenges.

Second, the relatively high cost of gas has expedited the air car's development. Yes, pump prices have plunged since July from record levels, but remain way higher than just a few years ago and continue to take a bite out of disposable income. Refiners will face carbon emission restraints, too, and steeply higher costs will be passed along at the pump.

Tata doesn't plan to produce the cars in the U.S. Instead, it plans to charge $15 million for the rights to the technology, a fully built turnkey auto assembly plant, tools, machinery, training and rights to use trademarks.

The CAV has a big hurdle: proving it can pass federal crash tests. Shiva Vencat, president and CEO of Zero Pollution Motors, says he's not worried. "The requirements can be modeled [on a computer] before anything is built and adjusted to ensure that the cars will pass" the crash tests. Vencat also is a vice president of MDI Inc., a French company that developed the air car.A new carmaker has a plan for cheap, environmentally friendly cars to be built all... more

J_Jammer [removed]
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Baddest car show in the world

Las Vegas set for SEMA expo Viva Gas Vegas - the baddest car show on the planet!... more

theolond
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3 years ago
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The best screen cars in Hollywood

From Herbie to the DeLorean, the best screen cars The top ten car-actors in film... more

compaqman
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3 years ago
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Tesla Feels Credit Crunch

Add Tesla Motors to the list of car companies buffeted by the financial crisis.... more

bmltv
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3 years ago
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Automobiles Review - Car News, Car Reviews, Auto Shows, Photos, Videos

AutomobilesReview.com is Web Blog and Online Community specialized in representing car... more

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3 years ago
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Pickens Natural Gas Cars Reality Check - Standard Taxi CNG -

Tell us why this is interestingSelf-made billionaire and self-proclaimed energy guru... more

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3 years ago
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Will new technologies make old people safer on the road?

It will soon be safe to drive again (assuming we can afford to!)...

dkincheloe
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3 years ago
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Water powered car is here!!!

You laughed at me, you called me crazy, well eat me y'all nay sayers!

colmor
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3 years ago
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20 comments

Reverse Graffiti

"Painted" Skulls on the inside of a tunnel in Sao Paolo, Brazil created by... more

dcsmitty
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3 years ago
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Brits drive bio-fueled cars 3,750 km to Athens

On August 16th a convoy of nine bio-fuel cars, running on vegetable oil or bio-diesel... more

Kabimbi
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3 years ago
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Paintless Car Saves Energy

Energy can be saved in surprising places, but let’s meander a bit first

If you own a new car, built in the last decade or so, take look around the wheel wells or perhaps the door sills. You might see pieces of clear plastic film adhered to the bodywork. If you have them they’re put there by the manufacturer to protect the paint in that area from scuff marks or stone chips. The plastic film is a lot tougher than paint is.

That plastic film might make you wonder. If a stone resistant film can be applied to a few small areas why not the same film to protect a whole car? And why only in clear plastic? Why not in colors?

According Soliant, of Lancaster, South Carolina, the film could be applied to whole cars and in an infinite number of color options, including two-tones, metallics, pearlescents, special effects and finishes including chrome and brushed chrome. Soliant says it can match any color car makers throw at them. Cars wouldn’t have to be painted, just a snazzy film applied, including graphics. Why don’t the big car companies do this? Stubbornness. Slow to change. Huge investments in assembly-line paint shops that they don’t want to scrap.

But that’s just big car companies. Little ones, especially startups, might be more open minded and willing to “paintfilm” a car rather than paint it conventionally. (Paintfilm is the name Soliant gives its product.)

As it turns out, one startup, Carbon Motors Corporation, which is developing and will manufacture the world's first purpose-built law enforcement patrol vehicle, the E7 will give paintfilm a go. In building its production facility for the diesel engined, plastic and aluminum patrol car the company will skip building a paint shop, saving as much as 40 percent of the cost of the new production plant.

And the savings won’t end there. Year after year there will be continued energy savings.

Carbon Motors, by using paintfilm instead of sprayed-on paint, estimates it will save 150,000 megawatt hours of electricity per year; the equivalent power consumption of 17,000 average US homes. (Imagine what a big manufacturer building millions of cars and trucks would save.)

Soliant claims another manufacturer using paintfilm is saving an estimated 23 gigawatt hours of energy equal to 13,200 barrels of petroleum. Further, water savings for the unspecified company using paintfilm is 115,000 tons per year. Using paintfilm cuts air pollution too. Volatile organic compounds (VOC) are reduced up to 98 percent on the production line as compared with traditional painting.

Soliant’s products, Fluorex(R) Paintfilm and Bright Film (chrome alternative), can be used with a variety of plastic and metal substrates including stainless steel and aluminum.

The possibilities with the wide spread use of paintfilm would grow if car manufacturers abandoned sprayed-on paint for paintfilm. Auto body shops could apply new paintfilm for accident repairs with a perfect color match. Older cars could be rejuvenated with a new paintfilm. Body shops would save money on energy costs and eliminate what is now a health and environmental hazard — spray painting.

Energy can be saved in surprising places, but let’s meander a bit first If... more