Peugeot to roll out air powered car next year

28 Feb 2014

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French car maker Peugeot is all set roll out the first air-powered hybrid car from next year.

Peugeot to roll out air powered car next yearAccording to the firm, with new 'Hybrid Air' engine system, the first combining petrol with compressed air, the car could reduce petrol bills by 80 per cent when driven in cities.

Peugeot would beat India's Tata Motors in the race to put an air car on the road, which has been working on developing an air-powered car since 2008 in collaboration with French company Motor Development International (MDI). (See: Tata Motors' air-powered car "around the corner'')

 ''Air power would be used solely for city driving, automatically activated below 43mph,'' said Peugeot in a press release.

The system combines a gasoline engine with an air engine which is used at sub 70 mph speeds, which allows running on petrol or air, or a combination of both.

The company said, by 2020, the car could achieve an average of 117 miles a gallon. The new engine system comes as a breakthrough for hybrid cars as it would obviate the use of expensive batteries.

Cars fitted with Hybrid Air system would be cheaper than current hybrid models. Drivers would also not run the risk of running out of compressed air because the car would have a sophisticated device that ensured automatic replenishment, added Peugeot.

The system would also go a long way in addressing green concerns as the technology could allow a car the size of a Citroën C3 or Peugeot 208 to emit as little as 69 g/km of CO2.

The system combines a normal internal combustion engine, special hydraulics and an adapted gearbox along with compressed air cylinders that store and release energy, which allows it to run on petrol or air, or a combination of the two.

The air compression system can re-use all the energy normally lost while slowing down and braking.

The motor and a pump are fitted in the  engine bay, and are fed by a compressed air tank underneath the car, that runs parallel to the exhaust.

Cars fitted with Hybrid Air would be around €1,200 cheaper to buy than current hybrid models.

The system is the culmination of the efforts of 100 elite scientists and engineers working on the air-powered car in top-secret conditions at the firm's and development centre at Velizy, just south of Paris.

Hybrid Air is the crowning achievement of Peugeot chief executive Philippe Varin's efforts to see the historic car maker regain its former glory.

The first models of compressed air engines were proposed more than a century ago, and they were used in the mining industry for decades before electric motors became commonplace.

The air car is propelled when compressed air from the tanks is injected into a small chamber, where it expands and cools. This expansion pushes a down the piston and as the temperature again heats the air in the first chamber, the air is forced into a second chamber, where it expands again to drive the piston up.

The use of ambient heat helps capture more energy in the compressed air, improving the efficiency and expanding the range of an air car. And compared with four-stroke combustion engines, in which half of the strokes are wasted to pull air and fuel into the chamber, the air engine makes use of every stroke.

In January 2007, Tata Motors and Luxembourg-based MDI signed a licence agreement that allowed Tata Motors to produce and sell compressed air cars using MDI technology.

Under the agreement, MDI transferred the technical concept to Tata Motors in the first phase while the second phase involved detailed development of the compressed air engine into specific vehicle and stationary applications.

Tata Motors had said in 2012 that the first phase of technology development was successful and it was working on the second phase.

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