Magnetic Air Car Could Be Ready by 2010

magnetic air car

Last week, I took a trip down to San Jose for West Coast Green, an environmentally-focused conference with an emphasis on sustainable building. One booth stood out from the crowd—Magnetic Air Cars, Inc.. The San Jose-based company claims that it is working on the world’s first fuel-less car (as opposed to the World’s Most Fuel Efficient Car).

The Magnetic Air Car uses three on-board substations to harness compressed air. The resulting airflow is channeled, modulated, and converted to torque that propels the car.

According to company representative Paul Donovan, the car uses a silicon salt battery that has 30% more mass power than a lead acid storage battery and can charge completely within an hour. The 95 percent recyclable battery can also can be used in a temperature range from -40 degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius.

Though the Magnetic Air Car has not yet been tested, Donovan hopes to have it ready for production by 2010. The company plans on building its first prototype at Club Auto Sport in San Jose in the near future.

The vehicle draws comparisons to Tata Motors’ 106 mpg air car, but Donovan says that the Tata Motors design uses pistons while the Magnetic Air Car design uses magnetic technology.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any more details available on the Magnetic Air Car at this time. But if the prototype is successful, I’m sure we’ll hear plenty more about this company.

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64 Comments

  1. Over the past 100 years the world has come to depend on oil, the time has come to look for new energy sources. Every new idea is always met with with cutesy remarks or negativity. I wish these guys the best of luck and at least they are not sitting on their butt wishing someone would do something.

  2. It’s not like they were asking for money. I question those of you who meet this with full negativity. All types of alternative energy ideas should be explored to get us out of the monopolistic hands of Big Oil. The problems we have today are because Big Oil and the Big Auto Companies were successful at stifling competing technologies, while making us dependent upon theirs. Witness the acquisition and destruction of miles and miles of train tracks in the Los Angeles area years ago. There used to be train tracks that ran from Pasadena to the beach. It would now take billions of dollars to recreate what the Autombile industry destroyed. I have no sympathy for them. They had opportunity to develop 100 mpg cars but instead paid their executives millions of dollars and stayed in bed with Big Oil. They should all go bankrupt - screw’em.

  3. It sounds cool.. But is it really work on my hot country???

  4. Hi, thanks for the heads-up on this. I think most people realized when the article said “fuel-less” that it probably was referring to not using some type of fossil fuel to directly power the vehicle (rolls eyes). It is not helpful to be disengenuous about these things, because knowledge is always better than the alternative, even if it is only partial and preliminary. The facts are not that negative…magnetic power has lots of potential, and once the paradigm of how to motivate a generator via magnetic pressure is discovered, this could have major implications for generating electricity OR torque cheaply. Everything is snake-oil and smoke and mirrors at first, especially when none of us were intelligent enough to participate in experimenting or supporting the research.:) Keep up the good articles, and you should not be expected to spoon-feed your readers information that requires no thoughtful reasoning on their part.

    Rick

  5. In response to comments made under; ‘Magnetic Air Car Could be ready by 2010’

    ‘Snake Oil?’ Not even close. As was hoped for, the exposure of West Coast Green Opened the Pandora’s Box and let out so many new technologies that so many previously thought had no application. One such energy device has been proven to provide the holy grail of ‘Zero Point Energy!’ We are planning to meet this person and see the technology for ourselves.

    The Race Proven kit Car is available to anyone with the money from Factory Five. It is ONLY an application for our motor. I am sure someone will decide to provide retrofit engine kits for people who have cars they wish to continue owning, but insist on making them GREEN!

    Fuel-less, YES! As soon as someone says; “The only way we will make this work is by burning a little FUEL.” That’s it, we’re done, end of the story. We’ll cut our loses and walk away from the project.

    Time Machine? Hmmm! Good Idea! First the MagAirCar, THEN the time machine.

    Vapor? Fuel cells run on Vapor. Gasoline must be vaporized before it burns clean enough as does diesel. Vapor is good, but not for this car!

    Not JUST fuel-less, we don’t have to pull-over for a recharge and we don’t need the Sun to shine to travel

    STORE the Compressed air! Not on your life, literally. Our tanks are only ten gallons each and there are three of them. The MDI car, in France has huge tanks that hold incredible pressure. We will make the pressure, entrain its use, use it in real time and reclaim most of that air for reuse, all in real time. Shut the car off and you will have only one tank holding air pressure.

    Too expensive! I don’t believe that will be a problem. Oh sure, just like everything else new they will be at first. But the engine does not use unusual materials or components. More than 85% of the Motor will be made from recycled materials. There for, when it is finished, you will be able to recycle most of the engine. What is left over will be non toxic and you can grind it up and throw it into cement for building materials.

    That’s enough for now. I’ll try to do more, but as you might guess, I am busy building the future of transportation and “I’ve gotta go!” Paul D. Donovan, CTO, Co-Founder and Lead Gear-head with Magnetic Air Cars.

  6. Why are they bothering with compressed air? If the thing runs on a battery anyway, why not just use an electric motor for the primary powerplant? Existing electric motors are very efficient, that’s not the problem with electric cars, its the batteries.

  7. I want to wish you all the luck in the world, we need this and don’t listen to the junk that people throw!

  8. good luck! we need this!

  9. My guess is that the battery stores electricity to power a compressor motor that sucks in outside air and stores it as compressed air which is then used to power a mechanical drive train of some sort (not pistons apparently but “magnetic”).
    The battery itself is likely recharged conventionally; partly by recovering some wasted heat from braking as well as plugging it into an outlet.

    As for the magnetic part… could just be referring to a DC motor or possibly some kind of magnetic bearing system that minimizes friction. Maybe even a magnetic induction system that generates electricity to help charge the battery when coasting downhill or something?

  10. Yes, we embrace the KISS pricipal. This new engine is so simple I find myself wondering why no one has built it before now. I started building the motor thirty years ago, my problem then was I did not want to have a huge air tank to worry about. That and a Turbo Bearing self destructing, real bad, brought my research to a noisey end. Today we have incredible new materials and prototyping facilities second to none. Today I can do in hours that which took weeks before. West Coast Green did exactly what we hoped it would. It drew out a flurry of new techologies that others have and kept hidden. Computers are good, but NOT the ultimate technology. I have signed NDAs about all these new technology, but I CAN tell you this. The next TEN years will prove to be a whole new paradym shift in transportation technology, energy technologies and the reduction of global warming. Twenty years from now I hope to have lived long enough to see a truly Golden Sunset. A Sunset free of pollution shineing on a planet in full recovery. Mankind must save themselves, take mankind out of the equation and the environment/earth will save itself. Nuff Said, I’ll climb down off the soapbox now!

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