Is it possible to produce an air-powered car?

What do you think is the greatest invention that has made life easier for mankind?

Electricity? Telegraph? Internet? Money? Something else?

Maybe we could say all of them. 

But I think the answer is the wheel!

Radial motion, that is, parts that rotate around an axis, are everywhere in our lives today. Many industrial and technological products we use have rotating parts.

These rotating parts are mostly in front of our eyes. 

The wheels of our cars rotate, allowing us to easily move the vehicle from one place to another, no matter how heavy it is. Wheels are also present on much heavier wagons, trucks and lorries.

Are the wheels the only parts that make turning movements in these vehicles? 

No, of course not, the engines of our cars are also the main parts that produce this rotational movement and transfer the rotation to the wheels through other rotating parts.

For many years, car engines have been generating the rotational motion using fossil fuels, partly by choice. Probably thousands of engines have been produced in this way. Various kinds, all developed by combining a lot of parts and with different powers. Human beings are really scary. He has the power to bring the world down when he wants to.

But nowadays, due to the global warming problem caused by air pollution and carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and partly to get rid of oil dependency, various environmental solutions are being sought.

One of the most popular solutions these days is electric vehicles. They are environmentally friendly first of all, or so we think for now.

When fossil fuel vehicles were introduced, there was an explosion of demand because we were going to get rid of horse droppings on the roads. 

Today, we are facing a much bigger pollution problem while we are trying to get rid of the environmental nuisance of that day. The increase in carbon dioxide, hence global warming!

What I am saying is that tomorrow, if electric motors, for example, interfere with the earth's magnetic field, which protects us from the sun's harmful radiation, we may have to think about how to get rid of this problem as well.

As Turkey, we thought that maybe we could catch up with the market share we missed in the fossil fuel vehicle market, so with the support of the government and a little bit of coercion, we took our first test vehicle off the production line the other day for our national brand TOGG. A small step for the world, but a big step for us. We are proud.

Electric motors are motors that produce rotational motion just like conventional fossil fuel engines. 

I won't get too technical in this article, but as far as the subject of this article is concerned, I can say that the difference from classical engines is simply that they use electricity instead of fossil fuels to produce rotational motion.

Of course, while fossil fuels can be transported in a simple tank, a heavy battery with technological features is needed to store and transport electricity.  

Battery technologies are still in the development stage, but at the technological stage that has been reached worldwide, it has not yet been possible to recharge fast enough. Fast-charging batteries have not yet been produced. 

In addition, the deterioration of the chemical structure of batteries over time seems to be a problem. 

Of course, another problem with batteries capable of storing the energy required for automobiles is their weight. 

We can accept the fuel standard of a vehicle as being able to travel 600-800 kilometers with a tank of gasoline. In today's conditions, if we standardize the filling time of a tank at gas stations, I think we can say a maximum of 5 minutes.

Of course, these values can be accepted as a comfort standard for now. If we take into account the other gains of being an environmentally friendly vehicle, these standards can of course be compromised.

But there is another problem with electric vehicles. This is partly an economic problem. It is not that easy to set up the electricity infrastructure in what we can define as battery filling stations. At the very least, it requires huge costs for conversion. So many vehicles will fill up at the same time, cable thicknesses, high voltage lines to be brought to the station, fire risks due to electrical contact, etc. etc...

Because of these problems, many countries around the world are seriously researching whether there are other solutions instead of electric vehicles. Almost the whole world is feverishly working on other solutions.

As I wrote in my previous articles, fuel hydrogen is considered as one of these options. Vehicles using fuel hydrogen have already been produced. In fact, I can say that these vehicles are becoming the preferred solution for the whole world because of the speed of filling the tank and the lighter weight of the vehicle thanks to the much smaller battery used, and also because they do not require such a serious infrastructure change at the filling stations. Hydrogen engines have been developed for all kinds of transportation vehicles, from airplanes to ships, trains, heavy vehicles to light vehicles. 

Since I have written about this subject before, I will not go into more detail.

https://strasam.org/ekonomi/mikroekonomi-ve-makroekonomi/hidrojen-gelecegin-yakiti-midir-937

Today I will explore another option.

One of the solutions is vehicles that run on compressed liquid air. 

Yes, compressing and liquefying air, or perhaps we could say producing fuel air, is a much less costly solution than producing liquid hydrogen, which we call fuel hydrogen.

At least locally, with compressor stations, the air that is easily available all around us is always available for this purpose. (At this rate, the government will tax air in the future!)

Engines that run on compressed air are actually not foreign to us. At least we are all familiar with the lug nuts with hoses that work on this principle, even in the tire shops where we go to change the tires of our vehicles for the winter. With the sound of a truck, mechanics easily remove and install the lug nuts of the wheels and quickly change the tires. If we get a flat tire, we have a hard time changing it ourselves on the road, even for a single tire. 

For another example, most of us are also familiar with the dreadful sound of asphalt crushers in the hands of workers who start work at the crack of dawn for a repair on our street, especially on weekends. These crushers also work with air. 

We call them pneumatic breakers in construction, they are also called compressor breakers. They work with an air compressor. There is also a pneumatic breaker attached to the end of excavators. 

Yes, it makes a lot of noise, but the working principle of the breakers is different, they work with a percussion system. The lug nut removers used in tire shops are both rotary and percussion tools. That's why they also make noise. 

Engines that use compressed air only for rotation are actually very quiet. And very powerful.

Yes, for some reason, the technological development of vehicles using liquefied air has not been the same as that of vehicles using fossil fuels. 

However, this idea is not very new.  

In the first recorded information on this subject, it is written that Andraud and Tessie, Frenchmen from Mota, tested a car powered by a pneumatic engine on July 9, 1840 in Chaillot, France. The result was reportedly successful, but for some reason the design did not become widespread like the automobiles we know later.

The next application was the Mékarski System developed by Polish engineer Louis Mékarski in France in the 1870s. In those days, this system was used in tram locomotives.

In 1911, the American Charles Hodges used a similar system directly on train locomotives. As an alternative to steam power, it could have been a good solution. But Charles Hodges later sold the patent of his invention to H.K. Porter, a coal mining company. Because pneumatic engines in coal mines were less risky in terms of griz explosions. I really don't know if they are still used in mines today. If it is the crusher gun in question, of course it is used, but my understanding is that a locomotive-style vehicle is mentioned. A locomotive pulling coal wagons!

As I said, for some reason, compressed air powered vehicle technologies are not advanced enough today. The sudden increase in demand for fossil fuel vehicles and the preferences of manufacturers, even the pressures of oil companies, may have played a role in this. As you can appreciate, the influence of giant oil companies in world politics today is not insignificant. 

Today, there is finally some serious research being done, especially in South Korea, on car engines that run on liquefied air. 

It is said that liquefied air can be used in automobiles in several ways.

One of these methods is engines that work on pneumatic principles, that is, I can say that it is similar to classical engine technology through pistons.

Another method is engines that make direct rotation movements in the working principles of jet engines.

Another method is called hybrid systems. They're talking about a simple generator powered by compressed air that charges the battery of a vehicle with an electric motor attached to it. 

Just like hydrogen-powered vehicles. 

Hydrogen-powered vehicles also have electric motors, but the battery that feeds this motor is constantly charged with electricity from a specially built hydrogen combustion chamber. Since the burned hydrogen turns into water vapor, it is considered an environmentally friendly solution. 

In short, it is possible to find many different solutions to produce a national automobile. As long as one wants to. As long as those who come up with ideas are given a chance.

My personal idea is to provide state incentives to other private sector representatives in parallel with TOGG, which we can now call our national brand.

In this way, it will be possible to create a second national brand that uses hydrogen as fuel, and a third national brand that uses air as fuel, and enter the world market from three sides.  

In this way, I think we can really have a say in the world market in terms of new generation automobile technologies.

Here is a new idea for you, a car that runs on air!

Although this idea is not very new, but at least it is a revival of a forgotten idea.

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow