The ACTUAL TESTED RANGE of their prototype vehicle was only 7.22km! Less than 5 mile operating range! Then they said that the production car would only weight half that of the prototype, so range will be doubled to 14km/9 miles; and we’ll change from steel tanks to carbon fiber tanks and we’ll add stages to the air engine so the range will quadrupled beyond that to 55km/34 miles; and improve the distribution seal of the engine to multiply range another factors of 2.5 to 138km/86 miles; and we’ll make the engine run closer to isothermic for another factor of 1.4 for a predicted range of 191km/120miles; and then we’ll make the tanks bigger and higher pressure to get a predicted range of 242km/150miles.

See how easy it is to take the actual performance of less than 5 mile range and come up with a specification of 150 mile range! Now we know how they do it on paper. The problem is, apparently they have NEVER done it in real life.

Taking a 4.5mile actual test and turning that into a 120 or 150 operating range is so outrageous that you may think I’m making this up. But you can see for yourself by going to the archived MDI website pages on the wayback machine at archive.org:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070915070846/www.theaircar.com/tests.html

It’s nice to have this sort of stuff recorded on the internet in a way that it won’t disappear.

What is the ACTUAL top speed of the prototype ??????

What is the ACTUAL range of the prototype ??????

I’ve seen lots and lots of claims, but very very little in the way of actual performance test results.

One can store about 1 kWhr in a cubic foot. If you want an x-prize vehicle (four seats, 100 mph, 0-60 in twelve, 200 mile range), start with an extended cab pick-up truck and fill the bed with insulated tanks. The drive line is “stock” with a manual transmission and, preferably, a modified diesel engine. The expansion ratio can be adjusted by the timing of the electronically controlled common-rail injectors, injecting air rather than fuel. Heat is plentiful, and cooling can be had either with the stock A/C unit or by overexpanding the exhaust.

Air/steam (I call it wet compressed air) has several advantages over batteries, whether in a hybrid or in a “pure” zero-emissions car. There are no scarce or toxic batteries which must be recycled, or expensive copper motors. Air tanks are cheaper and scale well. You can store megaWatt-hrs in an underground or underwater tank at a tiny fraction of the cost of batteries. Recharging is easy. You can have an electrically driven compressor in your garage, or stop at a “gas” station to recharge in minutes. (No, the tanks will not get “red hot”) With the quick recharge, the range at highway speeds is “unlimited”, while with a battery vehicle, when you add in the recharging time, the average speed is comparable to a bicycle.

Ban gasoline/diesel vehicles or place a massive tax on them being used inside the city limits, then provide thousands of these things in multi-story parking garages. Drive to the outskirts of the city, park your regular vehicle, slot your “share card” and pick up one of these for the last 10 miles to work.

Suddenly, your daily commute becomes a soft, quiet time with breathable air all around.

As for air conditioning, that would come from the tank itself. As the car is running, the tank will become freezing cold as the compressed air is used up. Just run the air from inside the unit around it to make it cool.

My only concern is that the site says a fill-up only takes “a few minutes”. Ahhh, no. Doing a fill-up CORRECTLY will take 10-20 minutes. Fill it up too fast, and it will get red hot, unless you’re already using liquid air.

Actually, the company has several hybrid power source designs. Take a look on MDI’s website.

I must assume there is no air conditioning (since even an efficient A/C compressor requires 2hp, alone). Likely there is not provision for heat either (no waste heat due to no internal combustion engine) which makes it unworkable for all but the most temperate climates.

I think the compressed air engine’s place is as part of a hybrid air/electric or air/combustion hybrid. Alone, air power is not sufficient.