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23/01/2013 10:37 | By Tim Pollard, managing editor, MSN Cars
Peugeot Citroen to build cars powered by compressed air
Compressed air power for new Peugeot Citroen: in pictures
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French car giant Peugeot Citroen plans to launch a new kind of hybrid car – powered by compressed air. And this technical innovation isn’t just a load of hot air, the company promises; it hopes to launch a range of small cars powered by compressed air as early as 2016, wearing the Hybrid Air badge.
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30Comments
23/01/2013 16:31
"Fuel bills in half and qualify for free road tax" - dont make me laugh, if this tech becomes fact then this government would have fuel at £2.80 per litre and knock the CO2 rating down to 50g/km ( they are already talking of 75g/km now ) Every advance in improved fuel economy over the last ten years has only resulted in increased fuel prices, to compensate the petrol companies and government losses, in revenue
23/01/2013 17:33
sounds like its run on cameron air
23/01/2013 16:18
that will end the expression that 'air is free'
23/01/2013 17:40
ok but what you might potentially save in running costs you will pay a premium for the thing in the first place so its smoke(less) and mirrors
23/01/2013 18:20
Won't be long now before we will be told to feed mainly on beans, shove a pipe up our a55 conected to a turbo and gas our own way to work.
23/01/2013 18:33
if this happens you will have to pay per mile driven
23/01/2013 22:33
There is nothing "wacky" about this technology at all. The compressed air would be injected into the cylinders of the engine creating the same pressure that drives the pistons as exploding petrol vapour does (or as steam in a reciprocating steam engine does). The only problem that would remain is, where does the compressed air come from? A tank able to hold a useful amount of pressurised air would almost certainly need to be spherical (not a space-efficient shape) and extremely strong (and therefore probably quite heavy). The braking energy of the car could be used to run small compressors that might contribute a bit of boost, but to pressurise a tank to full charge would take a very powerful compressor and probably a fair amount of time as well. Kudos to PSA, but let's all remember that it takes a lot of energy to get us from A to B, wherever we end up getting it from.
23/01/2013 18:42
Nice idea, but with no word on the cars list price and the real world economy figures yet to be proven, whether it will really work out cheaper over a typical ownership period remains to be seen.
Also, despite the constantly improving fuel efficiency of new cars, all the potential savings are being wiped out by the obscene hikes car insurance prices. Petrol and road tax are not going to get cheaper either.
Overall costs of car ownership are going up, not down.
And as someone else commented if cars with fuel economy of 140mpg become common the government would soon ramp up fuel tax to an even more ridiculous level to keep the revenue coming in.
So good for the environment, maybe.
Good for your finances....I doubt it.
Also, despite the constantly improving fuel efficiency of new cars, all the potential savings are being wiped out by the obscene hikes car insurance prices. Petrol and road tax are not going to get cheaper either.
Overall costs of car ownership are going up, not down.
And as someone else commented if cars with fuel economy of 140mpg become common the government would soon ramp up fuel tax to an even more ridiculous level to keep the revenue coming in.
So good for the environment, maybe.
Good for your finances....I doubt it.
23/01/2013 17:03
always said there was an alternative to petrol and diesel engines
24/01/2013 01:26
Quite a few years ago there was a weekly programme on BBC TV called Tomorrows World. As the name suggests it looked at state-of-the-art inventions and discoveries. On one of these programmes there was a French inventor who built a working model of a car that ran only on compressed air. Then it disappeared. I guessed one of the car companies grabbed it and now we know who!
23/01/2013 18:41
This isnt anything new..compressed air engines have been with us decades...and I`m not sure but I dont think their "storage" of energy is very good at all...a volume of 1 litre of petrol would supply the same energy as a volume of around 7 litres of battery space (which is way electric cars are crap) by comparison a compressed air tank would need a volume of 10 or 11 litres ???? That means a compressed air tank of 100 litres volume would only give the range of around 2 gallons of petrol ???
Cant see that the tank pictured would give any worth while range..its a con to get CO2 figures down in the " lab" tests...will be useless in real world..
23/01/2013 17:10
The same principle can be done with steam engined locomotives.
23/01/2013 16:27
Must have got the idea from Peter Dearman: http://www.dearmanengine.com/cms/
23/01/2013 17:18
If this is full of compressed air ,then when it comes to emissions will it be in Milli-Band E
23/01/2013 21:41
Should be interesting - they cant build a decent petrol or diesel car yet and they've had plenty of practice at that!
23/01/2013 18:25
Looks like a plumbers nightmare under the bonnet. Back to the good old days of Citroen!
23/01/2013 17:24
Shame they did not mention air only range and how long it take to refill the tank.
Otherwise nice concept,if range would be about 50 miles with quick tank pressurizing stations around this would be viable alternative to electric only cars.
23/01/2013 16:03
I thought of this idea years ago,but how about fuel air from the susspension afterall the roads have many bumps all using energy each time we hit one.
23/01/2013 23:57
I WILL NOT BUY A BOX OF MATCHES IF THEY ARE MADE IN FRANCE, THAT COUNTRY KICKS US IN THE TEETH CONTINUALLY, (EXCEPT OUR POLITICIANS CANNOT SEE IT)
ALL FRENCH CARS COST A MINIMUM 30% MORE THAN ANY OTHER CAR IN PART SERVICING AND LABOUR.
THEY SELL THEM CHEAP BUT PILE ON THE $ TO MAKE THERE MONEY THIS IS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. LIKE THEY DO WITH FIGHTER JETS TRAINS AND SHIPS SPARES FOR A MIRAGE JET ARE A TELEPHONE NUMBER FOR EVEN A SMALL ITEM.
AND BUYING A FRENCH CAR YOU ARE GIVING THEM A WAGE PACKET WHEN WE HAVE 5 MILLION BRITISH PEOPLE UNEMPLOYED.
24/01/2013 09:20
They are going to call it CAMERON after David Cameron. He must work on hot air. He exhales a lot of it.
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