DRAWBACKS

For practical application to transportation, several technical problems must be first addressed:

As the pressurised air expands, it is cooled, which limits the efficiency. This cooling reduces the amount of energy that can be recovered by expansion, so practical engines apply ambient heat to increase the expansion available. Conversely, the compression of the air by pumps (to pressurise the tanks) will heat the air. If this heat is not recovered it represents a further loss of energy and so reduces efficiency. Storage of air at high pressure requires strong containers, which if not made of exotic materials will be heavy, reducing vehicle efficiency, while exotic materials (such as carbon fibre composites) tend to be expensive. Energy recovery in a vehicle during braking by compressing air also generates heat, which must be conserved for efficiency. It should be noted that the air engine is not truly emission-free, since the power to compress the air initially usually involves emissions at the point of generation. Refueling the compressed air container using a home or low-end conventional air compressor may take as long as 4 hours, though specialized equipment at service stations may fill the tanks in only 3 minutes] To store 14.3 kWh @300 bar in 300 liter reservoirs (90 m3 of air @ 1 bar), requires about 30 kWh of compressor energy (with a single-stage adiabatic compressor), or approx. 21 kWh with an industrial standard multistage unit. That means a compressor power of 360 kW is needed to fill the reservoirs in 5 minutes from a single stage unit, or 250 kW for a multistage one. However, intercooling and isothermal compression is far

more efficient and more practical than adiabatic compression, if sufficiently large heat exchangers are fitted. Efficiencies of up to 65% might perhaps be achieved, (whereas current efficiency for large industrial compressors is max. 50% )however this is lower than the Coulomb's efficiency with lead acid batteries.

A 2005 study demonstrated that cars running on lithium-ion batteries out-perform both compressed air and fuel cell vehicles more than threefold at the same speeds. MDI claimed in 2007 that an air car will be able to travel 140 km in urban driving, and have a range of 80 km with a top speed of 110 km/h (68 mph) on highways, when operating on compressed air alone, but in as late as mid-2011, MDI has still not produced any proof to that effect. A 2009 University of Berkeley Research Letter found that "Even under highly optimistic assumptions the compressed-air car is significantly less efficient than a battery electric vehicle and produces more greenhouse gas emissions than a conventional gaspowered car with a coal intensive power mix." However, they also suggested, "a pneumaticcombustion hybrid is technologically feasible, inexpensive and could eventually compete with hybrid electric vehicles."