Tata Motors to introduce Air Car - Is it the next big thing?

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Originally Posted by fmicle

None of these green vehicles are zero emissions... they only move the emissions somewhere else, so from that perspective it's BS. The only advantage that I see is that you get better efficiencies on larger scales. For example, one thousand gasoline burning cars may be more polluting than one power plant producing electricity to charge the equivalent one thousand electric cars. (Note: I'm not a proponent of electric cars, just giving an example of how you could better control and regulate pollution in one place rather than one thousand.)

The typical internal combustion engine is still one of the least efficient ways to produce mechanical work in the world today. If I'm not mistaking, the best Diesel engines don't even come close to 50% efficiency and gasoline engines are worse than Diesel engines. Good electric motors on the other hand come close to 90%.

I'm still hoping that someone will discover anti-gravity or teleportation and then we'll solve the transportation problem at least

Beam me up Scotty!

incorrect

your Yaris is about 70% efficient or more on the highway at peak torque, about 20% in town

diesels yeah, are lucky to get 40-50, but they are most efficient around idle, which is why diesels power electric generators that drive electric motors on locomotives. that is the most efficient way to use a diesel (as a generator)

steam engines like I build are 5-10% . major heat loss for the power I get
but when the power comes on, it is huge


air cars have a big market as city cars/delivery vans in
alpine ski towns like Zermatt. zero pollution, can compete with electric.