# 106 MPG Air Car Creates Buzz, Questions



## jlsawell (Apr 4, 2008)

*Light design*
The body of the car planned for the United States would be built with fiberglass and injected foam. The chassis, composed of aluminum rods, would be glued together, not welded.
The design allows the car to be as light as possible, Vencat said.
For anyone who has doubts about its safety, he insisted computer simulations show that the vehicle would pass crash tests and meet all U.S. safety standards.
"Do you think somebody would actually put millions of dollars into making a car that will not pass safety regulations? There's no point in doing that," Vencat said.
Callister pointed out that there haven't been any lightweight, 100-plus mpg cars to pass crash tests but said it could be done through a "very clever design" of a lightweight frame.

Kinda says it all...really. It's a compressed-air powered GEE WIZZ

Can you imagine one of us taking a glued together conversion to the registration body and saying "please let me drive this at 90 miles an hour alongside SUVs and B-double trucks?"

A lot of these news stories sound like there's a teenager somewhere that's been busted for something... So they are frantically casting around for excuses and reasons and explanations that don't really fit with reality.

Hybrid/air/gas/oil etc - all these rabid alternatives when the solution is simple:

1. Renewable energy sources produce electricity.
2. Run cars on electricity and your problem is solved.
3. Put this research money into batteries and the problem is solved even faster.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

This is the dilema of composite vehicles. They are very light and if built right, they can indeed pass crash testing because of that light weight (less energy to dissipate on impact).

Now this assumes you hit something static and not get sandwiched between to larger vehicles......

I think there is great potential in foam core composite construction, but it really depends on how well its put together.

Using glue to fasten aluminum pieces together is just stupid though. Aluminum can corrode very quickly under the right conditions and if that corrosion sets into one of those joints, it can split apart in a matter of weeks or a few months. Corrosion is a big problem in my part of the world.

I am a weilder by trade and wielding aluminum is not that hard and does not add that much weight. DO IT PROPERLY!


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## 59921 (Aug 8, 2008)

If you run out of compressed air. how do you get the car home,
a bicycle tire pump? 

I like this venturi astrolab car









then again I don't have much of a winter to deal with


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## Telco (Jun 28, 2008)

I've looked at some of the aircars out there, and thought the idea was pretty good. They have several ways to get more air when away from home, either from an electric onboard compressor or a gasoline motor compressor. But, with 1000 miles of range on a single charge, it's unlikely that you'd be away from home when the air ran out. The car I read about would not pass US safety standards, but it wouldn't take much for them to make the car pass. Might cut the range to 500 miles since a larger air motor would be needed to move the car at speed, but it would definitely be possible. 

http://www.gizmag.com/go/7000/


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## Zer0 (May 9, 2008)

The "glue" term is probably a misnomer. I would imagine that they use a similar bonding process as to what Lotus uses.

From http://www.sandsmuseum.com/cars/elise/information/technical/asauto.html:


> ...
> "Bonding has many advantages over welding", says Rackham. First, it is more precise because it eliminates the distortion that comes with welding. "This is very important because in a high-performance car structure, the point where the suspension is joined to the structure has to be controlled to within 0.5 mm or there is a great variation in handling between vehicles", he adds. Another factor in the decision was the negative effect of the heat of welding on the aluminum. Bonding enabled Lotus to take advantage of the strength-to-weight benefits offered by heat-sensitive aluminum alloys which could not be welded easily without losing properties. Bonding also spreads the loads across a greater area than welding, providing strength advantages.
> ...


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

I'm still not comfortable with bonding instead of wielding, but they are right about distortion. I guess if you can afford a lotus, than you can also afford a house with a garage to park it in....


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## xrotaryguy (Jul 26, 2007)

I agree, if you look at the surfaces over which the "glue" is spread at the Lotus plant, you'll see that there is a huge area for adhesion. I'm sure that the end result is extremely strong and very stiff.


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