Trends in Electric Vehicles: Nothing Radical
When it finally became obvious about ten years ago that electric transportation was becoming a real “thing,” one that would ultimately dominate and then replace the internal combustion engine, most of us believed that the form factor of these vehicles would take a radical turn from what Detroit had been turning out over the last century. To remind us of where we stood at that moment, I present a photo of the Aptera here. Lots of respected auto industry pundits thought this little baby had a terrific future in front of it.
Of course, a car so futuristic that it dispensed with the paradigm of four wheels wasn’t the only new EV concept; there are plenty of innovative ideas for things like urban commuting and package 
delivery, as well as vehicles that would connect us from our homes to the transit systems that would take us to our intended destinations. As an example, here’s the Emcycle, a concept in personal mobility that I had tried (and failed) to help a friend get off the ground by raising investment capital.
Yet, according to my colleague Jon LeSage, in his “Green Auto Digest,” this really isn’t what’s happening at all, as discussed in the current edition here. The EV landscape is dominated by utility vehicles, e.g., SUVs and crossovers.
Below are a few shots that illustrate the concept.
Perhaps all this is an expression of a basic truth about humankind: we really don’t like change. Our desires for the “stuff” in our lives tend to morph in the least radical way possible.
Has anyone here driving an Aptera prototype? If so, did it seem to be a car that you would feel comfortable driving under normal conditions, such as driving to a transportation hub?
From looking at the picture, I’m inclined to question the stability of the vehicle. It looks too narrow for its center of gravity.
Craig,
At the time Aptera and several other strange little vehicles were searching for funding to remain in existence I made the observation that it wasn’t a case of why they couldn’t find more money, but how they ever received funding in the first place !
Auto-manufacture is business, impractical vehicles like Aptera were always doomed to fail. In the initial enthusiasm for EV adoption a number of these strange little oddities appeared. Most had very passionate, dedicated, idealistic, even fanatical supporters but lacked any realistic chance of success.
Along the way, apart from the dreamers, were the schemers, scammers and deluded. This is true of the early days of any new technology. Very few pioneers become commercially successful in the long term. It’s a sort of commercial Darwinism, only the strongest and luckiest survive!
The Automotive industry is a very tough business. Capital intensive, high risk, low profitability and fierce competition make auto-manufacture a difficult industry for even the most experienced.
Which is why Elon Musk is such a rarity, not just the right man at the right time, but an individual who can create his own opportunities.
Others in the less glamorous sections of the industry, like Gregory Palen and Scott Wine from Polaris Industries, and many others who have persisted in incorporating EV technology into their product lines are also true pioneers.
No one should ever underestimate the towering influence, courage and determination of Carlos Ghosn, or Akio Toyoda’s persistence in making EV technology a commercial reality.
Even those in General Motors who continued development against many forces within and without their own corporation are pioneers.
So too are those government visionaries whose support was essential to assist a fledgling industry, despite the high percentage of failure and strident opposition.
Craig, I greatly admire those brave enough to invest money in these ventures. Investing money in clean tech, is not for the faint-hearted or overly idealistic.
Venture capital investing can be very rewarding and satisfying, but it does require discipline, commercial judgement and rigorous analysis. (Along with a gamblers instinct).
I’m always on the look out for these little EV oddities to add to my collection of historic EV’s. I’ve acquired 34 vehicles of various ages and repair and over the next few years hope to acquire and restore many more. When I retire I hope to house the collection in some sort of EV museum.
Craig you take me back to a fond memory. I read and wrote a great deal about the Aptera. The designers ceded the limitation of battery technology, but were nevertheless trying to make a vehicle with over a 200 mile range. They reasoned that at speed aerodynamic drag demands most of the energy from a vehicle. The Aptera had one of the lowest coefficients of drag of any car. A three wheeled design also helps to reduce resistance.
Technology has surpassed initial battery energy density limitations. Such an efficient design is no longer essential and this may also be the reason manufacturers are now daring to use electric drive for aerodynamically poor vehicles.
I admired the pursuit of engineering excellence that was part of their dream. But sadly efficiency is not nearly so sexy as body curves, top speed or vehicles that look as if they could survive a demolition derby.
Frank, to your comment about center of mass. Electric vehicles tend to put the batteries low in the vehicle. This has the effect of making electric vehicles extremely stable regardless of the wheel configuration or height.
@ Breath on the Wind
If I sound harsh on the makers of eccentric little vehicles like the Aptera, it’s because they’re exercises in vanity and ego, which is fine, even laudable, when carried out with your own money.
In Aptera’s case, like so many others they demanded the taxpayer contribute to their folly. The pathetically impractical little vehicle had no realistic chance of being anything more than a curiosity in Southern California.
Wind resistance and drag coefficient is not important in a low speed vehicle. What was most annoying about EV makers like Aptera is they retarded the efforts of serious EV manufacturers, by making EV technology look ridiculous and impractical.
Perhaps you need to clarify what you intend by refering to a “low speed vehicle.” There is a classification of Electric cars here called low speed electric vehicles that are not allowed or intended to go over 30 mph. That Aptera was not in that catagory. But even at 30mph air resistance is a factor in fuel mileage.
With respect to funding are you somehow referring to some generic funding for a new company which may seek government funds, a company seeking investors or are you referring to some specific detail relating only to the history of Aptera.
The comment without references sounds generic but you seem to criticize the specific company for general business practice.
Hi Breath on the Wind,
As you would expect, Elctric vehicles have different dynamics to ICE. Wind and drag are relatively minor factors for vehicles traveling under 60 mph, especially in city traffic.
EV’s performance is far more susceptible to factors such as load, variations in load, gradients, acceleration, heat/cold and overall weight. All these factors affect the “usability” and practical convenience of the vehicle.
The Aptera design was certainly different, but not in a good way. Three wheel vehicles are easily dismissed as kit cars, or funny little oddities. The car looked unsafe in a collision, and could never have complied with all the 800 or so safety requirements insisted on by California and the Federal government.(Well not economically). The vehicle also had room for only two (smallish) occupants
The Aptera three wheels design meant in most states it could be classified as a motorcycle, avoiding safety tests.
Fiberglass shells find acceptance very difficult at the best of times, and when combined with a very odd design and poorly designed battery technology, the Aptera was never going to be a commercial success.
Even during the height of the Clean tech investment boom, with dollars being thrown at some really dubious projects, Aptera stood out as one of the most dubious business models.
I had some dealing with Aptera and the guy’s controlling the business, both on behalf of a client, and also I was interested in maybe buying some shells, (stating with 100) as tourist resort rental vehicles.
From my observation of Aptera and it’s management, they seemed very idealistic, in some ways very knowledgeable and enthusiastic, but totally unrealistic and completely incapable of large scale manufacturing.
Even for that era, Aptera’s business model was,.ah..’unusual !’
The company was locked into a sort of tribal internecine warfare between the original founders, industry executives it hired and investors. ( Aptera did raise over $ 30 million).
The company did spend an inordinate amount of time raising capital (especially from the DOE). At one stage the DOE did actually issue a very conditional loan offer of $150 million, but only if Aptera could secure $80 million elsewhere. Aptera pitched just about everyone, including most of the VC’s.
Everyone came to the same conclusion, the figures just didn’t ad up.
The company died leaving on a few enraged creditors and hopeful customers without deposit refunds. No commercially available vehicles were ever produced. Eventually the dies and rights would be purchased by the very disreputable PRC manufacturer, Zap-Jonway.
In comparison with others who cashed in on the alternate vehicle boom, Aptera was relatively small potatoes and did produce a very unusual and futuristic concept car.
Many of us would not be interested in vehicles which cannot travel at 45 mph (73 kph) or somewhat higher. There are many places, even in urban areas, where the speed limit is 45 mph and driving more slowly than that would be risky. Thus, vehicles incapable of traveling at only 30 mph or so would have very limited use.
Regardless of the speed limitations of a car, it must be stable and not prone to tip over. If one were to take a corner a bit too fast with some of those narrow 3-wheel cars, they would tip over.
Frank, perhaps my wording was confusing or you were paying attention to an un-knowledgeable source.
The Aptera was not intended to be a “low speed electric vehicle” This is a catagory of vehicles that that it was not a part of were also known as a “neighborhood electric vehicles.” We don’t hear much about them now. They were from the early days of EV development and were allowed special regulations. Think of motoring around a closed community or resort and venturing to some low speed neighborhood streets. Think of a police vehicle for indoors or a transport for around a park… The Aptera was NOT designed for such a role.
A typical gas powered vehicle has a higher center of gravity than any EV and it therefore less stable. There is nothing particularly magical about 4 wheels. Stability can be achieved in any number of ways. Unfortunately, our perceptions can’t always take in the physics. It may be easier to see on water: most sailboats have a keel or a centerboard but stability can also be achieved with outriggers. It can be impractical to use centerboards or a a keel. Land sailors do quite nicely with outriggers and a tall sail.
The same could be said for narrow cars (even with 4 wheels) Stability can be achieved with a sufficiently low center of mass which is a good job for batteries.
Breath,
You wrote, “A typical gas powered vehicle has a higher center of gravity than any EV and it therefore less stable.”. That is not necessarily true.
Stability is not determined by height alone. Rather, it is determined by the ratio of track (width) to the height of the CG. Thus, a very narrow electric car with a low CG can be less stable than a gasoline car which has a higher CG but which is much wider.
Some of the early low speed electric cars were so narrow that even their lower CG would not result in adequate stability. In fact, some of the early low speed EVs were barely wide enough for one passenger.
Other things being equal, a 4-wheel vehicle will be more stable than a 3-wheel vehicle. The end of the vehicle which has only one wheel does not contribute to stability.
Note the photo of that funny yellow EV. It is very narrow AND has only three wheels. Even with its probably low CG, the fact that it is so narrow and has only three wheels would make it tip over easily. In fact, taking a corner too fast would cause it to fall over on its side.
Having only three wheels causes other problems. When cornering, the wheel with no mate would be subject to greater side forces than the two wheels with mates. Thus, unless the lone wheel is considerably bigger, it would develop a higher slip angle. With the lone wheel on the back, the back wheel would be prone to break lose causing the vehicle to exit turns rear wheel first, i.e., it would exhibit strong over-steer which is an unstable condition. With the lone wheel on the front, the vehicle would exhibit strong under-steer and be very sensitive to side winds.
There are 3-wheel “motorcycles” which have only one wheel in back. However, that wheel is considerably wider than the front wheels to keep its slip angle from being excessive.
I am quite familiar with sailboats. In fact, one summer I even taught sailing.
Thanks for your comments Frank, perhaps when I mentioned the higher center of gravity for a typical petrol vehicle I should have added the “all else being equal.” A heavy engine higher in the vehicle produces a higher C/G than batteries and a heavy but far lighter electric motor lower in the vehicle.
There have been bad 4 wheel designs lacking stability (corvair) and it seems possible to make a stable 3 wheel design. While I don’t dream of 3 wheel vehicle designs at night I am open to the possibility. Designed poorly they could be less stable, but that is true of any engineering effort. If you would never go near one that is OK as I am not trying to sell you one.
To Craig’s post, I am perhaps more open to unusual designs than some. This is especially true when I understand the function. As Craig seemed to imply many will only accept so much new technology before they begin to blank out. After that there needs to be some powerful additional motivators.
It is somehow and at times the fringe that pushes the middle. GM said the EV couldn’t be done until the “fringe company “Tesla” produced a working EV with range, speed and a sexy look. The Aptera design seems unusual and impractical yet the three wheeled design with outriggers was copied by several entrants of a notable Automotive progressive X design competition and won first place (for fuel efficiency, concurrently suggesting that aerodynamic design has perhaps more of a part to play than you give credit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_X_Prize )
Perhaps your business dealings soured you to the design and the company, perhaps the ownership suffered from some fanaticism which is also not unusual with some start-ups, but the design was never-the-less inspirational to some as it seemed to have once been with you to motivate your original inquires.
And to Craig’s point, it takes more than inspiration, and an unusual approach to inspire the conservative center of the business community. Tesla’s fight to cut out the middle men in its auto sales may be touching on the same sensitive issues.
Also I wonder how many who apply for public funds do so without an exercise of vanity and ego. In addition to greed these tend to be powerful motivators. Although it might be nice to live in a world where “only he who is without sin” can make the request for public funds even the origin of that quote was suggesting that there are few to none who could apply.
Hi Breath on the Wind,
Events like the Automotive X Prize provide a valuable stimulus for research and development , in the same way a ‘concept cars’ stir the imagination.
But there’s a very great difference between a styling exercise and a commercial production prototype.
In the case of Aptera I was wearing my analysts hat. In that professional capacity I don’t allow myself to get emotionally involved, my task is to make an unbiased, dispassionate, assessment of all the elements that constitute the company and it’s products.
I’m assisted by a highly trained and experienced team, with access to the best research, expert knowledge and commercial intelligence. We don’t always get it right, but sufficiently to keep our reputation and make our clients money. ( I’ve been doing this nearly 35 years, so I must be doing something right :)!)
Just as in my assessment of Tesla’s campaign to evade dealing through franchised dealers. I don’t have a dog in the fight. I was simply asked for my reasons why I didn’t believe Tesla would find it easy.
I also advanced logistical reasons, including the problems applying to experience of Apple to a totally different industry. Tesla’s model works fine when selling 50,000 cars per year, but once Tesla starts selling volume, new factors come into play. Considerations like trade-ins, local influence, competition and a host of other factors come into play. These are areas of expertise not yet developed by Tesla.
To the credit of the Tesla executives they listened attentively, and considerately. I was very impressed by their capacity for absorbing new information, without needing to boost egos by ranting dogma.
As for my personal opinion of the Aptera design,…I loved it! market. However, I also realized that the design, like many exotic sports car designs limited the vehicles appeal to a very niche market. I still believe it could have been very successful in a niche market.
But such vehicles must command a premium price to survive.
Unfortunately, the company developed a business plan based on volume manufacture and sales at a relatively low price.
It just wasn’t feasible. The whole business model was mortally flawed. Most of the engineering,(apart from the design) had no basis in reality and the logistics of a supply chain simply didn’t exist.
Tesla developed it’s own drive train and electronics, but used mostly ‘tweaked’ or reorganized components, that avoiding re-inventing the wheel.
When Tesla presented it’s business model to the DOE, it was thorough and comprehensive. Every last detail and every possible question could be answered and costed. The presentation reflect the high standard of organizational professionalism that one has come to expect from Elon Musk and his team.
In contrast, Aptera’s presentation was confusing and relied on enthusiastic idealistic vision, but nothing to support any business case for realistic investment.
The 30 million raised was from investors like Google, and other dot.com companies, flush with cash and willing to back cool sounding, idealistic projects, without much due diligence.
You are quite right, some very successful and really bright people can be seduced by the passion for an idea or product and won’t let go, despite the idea being barking mad !
A very good case is the brilliant Sir Clive Sinclair, who designed and persisted with strangely eccentric little Sinclair C5 one-person battery electric vehicle. (I own three in various stages of repair). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5
I could quote many instances of failed EV manufacture, Such as CODA , (dubious bunch of scammers tied up with a PRC weapons dealer), The Blade Electron, an excellent vehicle built by a highly competent engineer, betrayed by the Australian Green-left government. Modec Electric Van, a very professionally produced vehicle, nearly 500 produced, let down by UK government policies and lost the CEO Lord Jeremy Borwick his entire personal fortune. ( Jamie is a personal friend and really committed everything to environmental causes). Vectrix EV Maxi-Scooter, just a little ahead of it’s time, but a valiant attempt. Lost nearly $2 billion of investor money, mostly due to the utter incompetence and ego driven bad management of the CEO.
I could go on naming the failures, including the brilliant Fisker-Karma, but I think I’ve answered your question.
Marco, I didn’t have a question. Just an observation, the x prize was for fuel economy not styling. Perhaps it was one thing that somehow escaped your purview.
But it seems that you have plenty to say without the need of a specific question.
Breath on the Wind,
I’m aware of the terms and conditions of the X prize. However fuel economy is pretty irrelevant if no vehicles are ever produced or sold !
It sounds to me like you were one of those pretty enamored with the the concept of Atera, and you weren’t alone. Like many concept vehicles it stirred the imagination.
The history of automotive design is littered with great idea’s that never were commercialized or became practical.
Marco, I appreciate your learning curve or perhaps mis understood your previous reference to the event: “But there’s a very great difference between a styling exercise and a commercial production prototype.” At least you are consistent about the “commercial” aspect.
There have been many attempts to make fuel economy “commercial,” but it tends to take a somewhat lower priority to status symbols. But before you dive into a long lecture on appearance vs necessity, I am not asking a question or posing a topic.
Breath,
I think that you’re right. Even so, I think that cars are less of a status symbol now than they were half a century ago.
Studies show that the recent generation is more interested in personal technology than personal transportation. Go everywhere and say seems to have more appeal than to go anywhere and listen.
It is not obvious that electric cars will be the winning technology. That may occur. In fact, I think that the probability that it will occur is > 50%. However, there are other possibilities.
If abundant and inexpensive power becomes common, perhaps it will be used to manufacture an artificial fuel suitable for vehicles. That might become the exclusive technology. Or perhaps vehicles running on an artificial fuel would co-exist with EVs. Or, perhaps EVs will predominate.
I remember reading about a prediction that was made in the very late 1800s, when the phonograph was undergoing rapid development. One writer predicted that the phonograph would phase out newspapers. Instead of having newspapers delivered each morning, a wax tablet would be delivered. It would be wrapped around a cylinder for a phonograph and played so people would listen to the news as they ate breakfast. Of course it never happened. About the same time, it was also predicted that ships and airplanes would be battery powered. That never happened either.
Making assumptions is risky. We really don’t know what will happen.
Frank, predictions are difficult but we have such a desire to know the future that the talk of pundits has a popular appeal. Also sometimes we must make decisions and have to guess at one future or another.
In those times, how we categorize the past may help or hinder our predictions for the future. Throughout all of history we have used energy for transportation. Wind in sails and humans pulling oars for sea transportation. Since the invention of the steam engine we have used a chemical form of energy contained in fuels.
To think in terms of “fuels” for transportation then tends to narrow the field for the potential future. As a chemical form of energy fuels allow us to store and transport energy. But they also leave a chemical deposit as we use the fuel. Batteries also use chemistry for energy but in rechargeable batteries the chemistry is not a one use system.
If we wanted to have more assurance with our future predictions we might copy the trend for multi-use chemistries. In addition to electrical batteries this could give us heat batteries.
We have also recently used engines that produce heat from chemistry and then either externally or internally convert that heat to motion. For more than 100 years we have also preferred electric motors because they are far simpler, more efficient, require less maintenance and tend to last longer – where we could get electricity to them by transmission, producing it nearby or having a stored supply nearby. The electric motor only needs an electrical supply making it a strong favorite in a world that can increasingly supply the needed power.
But there are also engines that use heat directly. The Stirling engine like the steam engine uses an external heat supply. If we could supply the heat without burning a fuel (as with a heat battery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9upXeTMHUqE )these might have a place in a world increasingly concerned about atmospheric pollution.
The last vehicles with a long history but some recent innovation would be compressed air cars. There are both rotary and piston designs. A 250,000 rpm dentist’s drill is powered by compressed air.
For fueled vehicles to keep up with the many advantages of these vehicles they would have to produce no pollutants, be low maintenance and have a long life: all present disadvantages of present vehices. A kind of electric hybrid using a hydrogen fuel cell to provide electricity may a solution (commonly referenced as “hydrogen cars” )may provide a future solution especially as they are pushed by fossil fuels companies (most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels and is polluting at the place of manecufacture.) It would be interesting to see the economics of producing hydrogen in a solar thermal or atomic powered plant. Electricity may be too useful for other applications and more efficient in a BEV. But just as a BEV is more efficient than a “hydrogen car,” a heat battery powered car is likely to be more efficient than a car that essentially uses hydrogen as an energy carrier.
If a hydrogen car is the best we can forsee then any other fueled vehicle is likely to come up with even less compared to the competition. Time will tell. What is best is certainly not what is immediately adopted.
Breath,
H2 cars are unlikely. H2 exists only in compound form and cannot be efficiently liberated therefrom. The “round trip” efficiency from liberation to use is not very high. EVs, round trip, use electricity much more efficiently, but in many situations there limited range is a problem although that problem may be significantly reduced.
The most obvious artificial fuel would be ammonia; it can be used by IC engines similar to ones we are already using. The limited “round trip” efficiency would be a problem, but at least NH3 can be transported and stored more easily than H2.
Powering airplanes would be even more challenging.
Round trip, compressed air to power anything is very inefficient. Storage is also a problem. A compressed air engine is basically a heat engine. The high temperature side is the temperature of the compressed air; the low temperature side is the temperature of the air just before it leaves the engine. The temperature difference between the two is too low for high efficiency. Even if a Carnot engine were possible, the efficiency would still be low. The maximum theoretical efficiency can be determined by a formula which has been known for well over one century: http://www.endmemo.com/physics/heatengine.php
I suspect that there will be a mix of power technologies for vehicles with some being EVs and others using an artificial fuel, perhaps NH3. Liberating H2, either to make NH3 or to use directly, would not be polluting if the power source were non-polluting and it were liberated by electrolyzing water.
I would tend to agree that the only viable path forward for hydrogen is the one pushed by fossil fuel interests, but that presently has a lot of push. For that political reason alone I would not discount hydrogen in the near term.
Ammonia as a fuel source seems to have many of the disadvantages of hydrogen plus a host of other issues, but the same fossil fuel backers: http://www.theenergycollective.com/geoffrey-styles/46324/ammonia-alternative-fuel While it is possible a breakthrough might advance one possibility over others electric vehicles have only one issue to resolve: electrical supply. When other means of transportation have multiple issues to resolve (ie 4 miracles of hydrogen…) they seem less likely.
Most of my reading tends to confirm the inefficiency of compressed air storage (and use) but recently I saw some information suggesting a breakthrough using a water spray within compressor cylinders to improve efficiency. I can imagine the use of compressed air in hot environments where Solar dish Stirling engines or wind turbines are used to compress air. The heat is used in a co-generation aspect for an industrial process and the vehicles take advantage of compressed air cooling for air conditioning. The only trouble is that the world tends to like simple one solution fits all answers and the same efficiency is not so attractive in cold environments. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/LightSails-Secret-Plan-to-Slash-the-Costs-of-Compressed-Air-Energy-Storage As with electrical vehicles there seems to be only one major technological hurtle: efficient energy storage… However with compressed air there is also the little problem of new infrastructure deployment that would not so hinder the mass adoption of EV.
I think the most obvious trend is the one that will ultimately prevail: battery EVs. Hydrogen is a preposterous solution IMO, given the absence of a fueling infrastructure, as well and the cost and inefficiency of electrolyzing water.
Craig, this may sound like arguing both sides but I absolutely agree that hydrogen and to some extent ammonia which shares the same fossil fuel source sound like absurd proposals. I would even suggest they are a fossil fuel scam.
But they have gone beyond proposals. There have been hydrogen fuel cell electric cars for lease in California for many years. Several car companies are preparing models. Iceland has hopes for a hydrogen future. Hydrogen is a defacto alternative fuel for transportation. (Compressed air cars have also been produced and operated in France.)
Hydrogen sits in the shadows like a lone wolf. It is not strong without numbers but it threatens the clear choice of non hybrid electric cars. Low fuel prices weaken the EV position. Should the EV falter hydrogen is waiting to strike, pushed and backed by the fossil fuel industry.
I wouldn’t hate the wolf, or the hydrogen car. I am wary that some will be fooled by the promises. But most of all it is important to focus on improvements to EV technology rather than make too many assumptions.
Frank, in addition, India, a generally warm country toyed with adopting compressed air technology in the form of a MDI (French piston style air engine vs Australian style rotary air engine) inspired Tata Motors vehicle. For a country with limited infrastructure that needed to be significantly expanded a new technology would not be such a hardship.
I was looking for some recent cite on compressed air cars and moved on after a brief search then found this in my reading: https://solarthermalmagazine.com/2016/10/13/inside-a-compressed-air-car/ An interesting hybrid design, so compressed air continues to be discussed.
Breath,
Probably the idea will go nowhere.
The most efficient possible engine is the Carnot engine. It is a theoretical ideal engine which is impossible to make, although there are attempts to get as close to it as possible. Even if it were possible to make a Carnot engine, it is very doubtful that a compressed air car could ever be justified except possibly under highly unusual circumstances for highly specialized applications.
In all likelihood you are right. Compressed air powered vehicles seem like a niche item. They have been around for more than 120 years and were originally used in mines to avoid the spark that could ignite gas. This ruled out the use of combustion or electric vehicles. But they do have a past and therefore might have a future.
When sparklessness is essential and critical, vehicles running on compressed air certainly would have an advantage. I never thought of that application. I think that torpedoes have also been powered with compressed air. That’s another application.