Compressed Air powered automobile. Do any exist?

[alsancle]

Compresses air technology has been around for a long time.  Basically similar to a steam car except the air is compressed by some sort of engine or motor as opposed to a burner.    Does anybody know of a period car (early 20th century) that runs on compressed air and still exists.

 

There are modern attempts at making this work.  The following thread is from 2012 and there is currently a car manufacturer talking about selling one.

 

[alsancle]

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/liquidair/liquidair.htm

 

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by alsancle (see edit history)

[TAKerry]

Interesting idea. But the idea of compressed air and even more so, hot compressed air has me thinking of way too many options, many of which would get the thread locked down, LOL.

[Gary_Ash]

There were locomotives that ran on compressed air or stored steam. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireless_locomotive

[alsancle]

Children's cars also.

 

[alsancle]

This is an interesting page on "Liquid Air":

 

http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/liquidair/liquidair.htm

[cudaman]

Concerned that Roots blowers for supercharged Hemi engines took too much horsepower to drive, Art Malone built an experimental dragster with a huge air tank that took the place of the normal supercharger for his Hemi engine.  The car is now at the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing.  From the Draglist.com forum:

 

"It wasn't large Father, it was Art Malone.  The car is in Big's museum.........really Kooky car........had a HUGE compressed air tank that ran the length of the car from the drivers foot box to the front axle the car looks like conventional front engined car from the cowl forward........but then the motor is mount side winder style behind the driver and the crank is used as the axle with the wheels mounted to it............it had a hilborn looking injection intake with two huge tubes running around the cage and hooked to the tank valves.........feat of engineering indeed.........I think it ran only once or twice.the car launched hard then the crank broke.........and after they got that figured out they found that the compressed air was not enough to make it run well.........and it was shleved.  somehow Big got the car and restored it.........ERIK"

 

http://www.astradyne.co.uk/tet/showpic.php?dir=05florida&name=florida065.jpg

[zdillinger]

It's an interesting idea but the problem to overcome is that compressed air has nowhere near the stored energy of steam, so you need really big, inefficient storage tanks to make it anything more than a novelty. I tried to build a compressed air powered riding lawnmower once when I was in high school and it failed miserably for that exact reason.

 

[joe_padavano]

If you are running an engine to compress air to run the car, why not just use the engine to run the car and avoid the additional losses?

[MochetVelo]

Compressed air has been used for years to start big diesel and other engines. I believe the air is injected into the cylinders to get the crankshaft moving.

[JACK M]

Stumbled into this guy a couple of years ago.

I think I donated ten bucks to his cause.

 

[Rusty_OToole]

Years ago I read a book, published in 1903, about all the newest inventions. One of them was a car powered by liquid air. If you compress air to a pressure of 600PSI it turns into a liquid. This liquid can be stored in a thermos type cylinder if it is kept really cold.

The car was like the one in Alsancle's post above, in fact it looks like the same car. It was made by the Liquid Air company. This company I believe is still in business making welding gases.

You can store a lot of air in liquid form and it will expand when exposed to the heat of the atmosphere. You can see a long coil of tubing under the floor evidently to warm and expand the air.

[alsancle]

4 hours ago, joe_padavano said:

If you are running an engine to compress air to run the car, why not just use the engine to run the car and avoid the additional losses?

 

You have to remember this was the early part of the 20th century and there were all kinds of alternative power and transmission systems being worked on.  Steam, Electric, magnetic transmissions, friction drive, etc.   Eventually things settled around what we have been used to for the last 100 years.

 

 

[alsancle]

Feb 1899 discussing new air powered street cars.

[alsancle]

This is March 1909.   I will say that 90% of the newspaper references are for stock sales.  Automobiles were the next big thing and there was a number of stock schemes in the era.   The Doble Steam Car company being a notable example.  Although you could argue that Abner was just a horrible business person and too much of perfectionist as an engineer.

[alsancle]

Interesting tidbit from 1913.  Here is a picture of one of these Parisian compressed air double deck trams they are talking about.

 

This site does a great job of explaining the tram:

 

https://fabricofparis.com/2021/05/06/tramways-ile-de-france-history-compressed-air.html

 

The main hurdle to a successful compressed air engine is temperature change: compressing air dramatically increases its temperature, while a rapid reduction in pressure has the opposite effect. The latter problem can be of particular concern as it can cause pipework and brake lines to freeze. Mékarski’s solution to both problems involved water: a cold-water spray to cool down the hot air upon compression, and a tank of pressurised hot water carried on board vehicles to warm up the air as the pressure was released.

 

[George K]

29 minutes ago, alsancle said:

Interesting tidbit from 1913.  Here is a picture of one of these Parisian compressed air double deck trams they are talking about.

 

This site does a great job of explaining the tram:

 

https://fabricofparis.com/2021/05/06/tramways-ile-de-france-history-compressed-air.html

 

The main hurdle to a successful compressed air engine is temperature change: compressing air dramatically increases its temperature, while a rapid reduction in pressure has the opposite effect. The latter problem can be of particular concern as it can cause pipework and brake lines to freeze. Mékarski’s solution to both problems involved water: a cold-water spray to cool down the hot air upon compression, and a tank of pressurised hot water carried on board vehicles to warm up the air as the pressure was released.

 

Boy those French guy don’t give up easy. There’s their last electric battery bus experiencing some issues.

[Bhigdog]

10 hours ago, Gary_Ash said:

There were locomotives that ran on compressed air or stored steam. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireless_locomotive

There is a stored steam loco on display in tamaqua, pa. Pretty good sized engine but basicly a big insulated tank on wheels. If any one is interested i,ll get a pic.....bob

[George K]

We could go back to the old gas bag. Coal gas not just air.or you could have a cold gas rocket car

[tom_in_nh]

I recall reading about a compressed air vehicle in the Society of Automotive Historians published journal.

If there is interest, I will dig up the issue - not sure if I am even allowed to photocopy the article for this forum's viewing. 

[alsancle]

So a newspaper search shows that the compressed air concept was pretty much done by 1906, at least as far as newspaper stories go.  In the late 20s there was a comic strip which was using the compressed air car as part of the joke story line and you get 100s of hits in 1927.  But basically no real news.

 

This is from the LA Times in 1895.

[Billy Kingsley]

Ford's Lev-A-Car was compressed air powered and built for, I believe, the 1964 World's Fair. Only one was built, it was too expensive and impractical to actually produce. AMT made a model kit of it.

[alsancle]

2 hours ago, Billy Kingsley said:

Ford's Lev-A-Car was compressed air powered and built for, I believe, the 1964 World's Fair. Only one was built, it was too expensive and impractical to actually produce. AMT made a model kit of it.

 

Here is a picture.  I can't find anywhere that talks about what was supposed to actually make the thing move.  It was using air pressure to levitate but I think what they built was more of a concept model than anything real.

 

[Billy Kingsley]

There was an article in Model Cars Magazine that had a detailed history of the car including blueprints if I remember correctly. Unfortunately I'm too scatterbrained to keep my magazines together and in order so I have no idea where it is for checking.

[Dan Cluley]

I can see a definite advantage to air powered streetcars.  You could just have one big compressor and tank setup and consolidate the infrastructure at the carbarn rather than stringing overhead wires or underground cables all over town.

[alsancle]

12 minutes ago, Dan Cluley said:

I can see a definite advantage to air powered streetcars.  You could just have one big compressor and tank setup and consolidate the infrastructure at the carbarn rather than stringing overhead wires or underground cables all over town.

 

Exactly what they did in Paris.