Re: PRIUS+ Conversion Technical Group Open For Viewing
I am very interested in the results of safety tests with these vehicles too. Supposedly the technology used for their frames is very well proven in the aerospace industry and is not suitable for large scale manufacturing, but works fine in smaller volume production. It seems to be aluminum tubes that are glued together and clamped while the glue cures. It results in a very strong frame capable of absorbing a lot of force while remaining rigid enough to keep occupants safe. People often site airplane crashes as often disastrous, but we forget that most crashes that involve a lot of destruction happen at hundreds of miles per hour, as compared to these vehicles, mainly for use within a city going no more than 110km/hr if they ever reach that speed.
However, real world tests are the only sure way to know how well they perform, and they have yet to come, as far as I know. As for the safety concerns about the tanks, they have taken all safety issues into account, the tanks themselves are proven technology used as natural gas tanks, mostly on busses all over North America, they are not metallic tanks, so they can't explode like a metal tank can upon impact, they are spun carbon fiber so they have built-in weakness for safety so that if the tank gets distorted in any way during an accident there will be a predictable air-release function that won't cause any serious injury by way of explosion or the rocket effect of a ruptured valve. I'm sure having high pressure air in a vehicle is a lot safer than high pressure methane (natural gas) and they are both stored within similar pressure ranges. I would rather air in any kind of crash, there is less chance of the escaping gas causing more harm, such as with methane it can explode, or even gasoline for that matter can (and does, quite regularly) burn people alive in their cars after a crash.
As for electric assisting the air motor, it is, that's the hybrid technology in it. It will use a CVT as the drivetrain and can recuperate energy via battery charging or via air compression once the battery is full. They are working on a tri-fuel hybrid that can burn gasoline in an external combustion chamber that will produce a high pressure (exhaust) gas that can be fed into the air engine as the pressurized air is. This will make possible a vehicle with a long range of pollution free driving within the city and also capable of driving 2000km on a tank of gasoline for long trips. A bit like the plug-in hybrids you will be able to use gasoline alone, or plug it in (or fill up with air at a station) for the low cost, high efficiency operation within the city. The engine is using the power in the gasoline much more efficiently than in an ICE, but it will also be burning it in a much cleaner manner, a near perfect burn, as compared to the ICE where air must be pumped in after the combustion, then catalytically manipulated to produce somewhat cleaned up exhaust.
They are also planning busses and boats, along with barges that can be tied up and generate compressed air by gathering the power from the river flowing below it. The air can be piped to shore fill stations or used by boats that run the air engines. I think one of the first places that will see some of these systems put in place in Spain since they have signed many of the early contracts with MDI. Will be very interesting to see how things develop, especially in terms of the safety of their designs in real life.
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