This is not a prototype - it’s a production model car! Pretty sharp, until you are rear-ended by a Hummer. That’s why you won’t want to laugh too hard when you are passing up the gas station…
I recently visited a couple websites which tried to explain how to run a car on water. The sites are selling e-books or manuals on how to do the conversion yourself for a few hundred dollars. They even claim that you will qualify for Federal tax credits for converting to a “hybrid” car, as this one infers:
http://water-for-gas-reviews.com/RunYourCarOnWater.html
(I do not even want to link to them on the fear that it will legitimize their scheme, but you can make your own decisions.)
I won’t even address the possible trouble with the IRS on this topic, since in effect you are designating your car as a a hybrid without any certification. Check the tax code yourself on the IRS.GOV website. You will have to stretch your, and your auditor’s imagination a bit to get that one.
After deciphering the poorly written explanations of how the technology is supposed to work, it appears that the proponents (shall we call them snake-oil salesmen?) are telling you to use your car’s electricity to create electrolysis, or the process of breaking water down into its component parts of hydrogen and oxygen. Hopefully, they have two paths of collection for the gases so they remain separated prior to injection into the fuel line, but I doubt it. That would be quite a modification to do by yourself.
Then, some of these site discuss the resultant gas, HHO as increasing the combustion rate of engines. I wonder why the automobile manufacturers couldn’t figure that one out? Oh, I forgot - these sites are implying that the automakers are knowingly creating inefficient cars! If that were the case, Toyota wouldn’t have had to sell its Prius to conquer the fuel-efficient car market - Toyota could have done this couple-hundred-dollar modification itself and saved the money on the hybrid drive system and the expensive batteries. Of course, that’s part of the conspiracy - Toyota wants to sell these expensive cars to us unsuspecting customers!
Another thing that concerns me, is that if this system does inject hydrogen into the combustion process, wouldn’t that create more moisture in the engine? Yes, moisture is created in gasoline and diesel combustion too, and can be a major problem if you don’t run your engine long enough to create the heat necessary to evaporate the moisture from the engine and exhaust systems. This is called wet stacking and will reduce the engine’s life. I suspect that if the gas-to-water system really works, then it would only aggravate that problem.
Another consideration is whether the hydrogen adds power to the fuel-air mix? Maybe it adds a little bit, but since energy is neither created nor destroyed, it had to come from somewhere. Did it come from the water? No - water is a stable molecule which does not burn, and thus, does not give any energy via combustion. Then, the extra energy had to come from the hydrogen, right? Yes, it did. But the hydrogen was separated from water by adding energy via the electrolysis process. That energy came from the car battery, which was charged by taking energy from the drive train, which derives it from the engine, which is powered by the gasoline or diesel fuel. Since a perpetual motion machine has never been developed due to frictional and heat losses, we have to assume there are losses in this system too. Reference the Wikepedia article on HHO, which clearly states: “The energy required to generate the oxyhydrogen always exceeds the energy released by combusting it. (See Electrolysis of water:Efficiency).”
This would be similar to a homeowner trying to generate his own electricity by buying an electric motor connected to his home utility grid, and connecting it to a generator into which he plugs his appliances. Sure he generates electricity, but the power ultimately comes from the utility grid, and he loses some of the power due to friction in the drive train between the motor and generator, and the resistive heat losses of the circuits. By the way, I have seen this proposed on the internet as a way of “generating free electricity.” The inventor of that system, like the inventor of the gas-to-water system, also mysteriously disappeared due to another conspiracy.
Here’s my challenge: While the engineers reading this are probably agreeing with me, the snake-oil salesmen are probably outraged.
I would love to hear comments from both sides of this argument, and I will publish all opinions as long as they are not SPAM or overtly commercial.
Let’s see if someone convinces me and I wind up eating crow on this issue!
Caveat Emptor: Watch out for businesses and products which promise to save you gas by adding some expensive liquid to your fuel tank, or, as I have recently seen, a company which sells a car engine conversion kit to allow your car to run on gas.
It seems that a large number of people believe this hype, and with gas prices increases at their current rate, maybe many of us are willing to suspend our disbelief in the hopes of finding a solution.
However, the reality is that mineral oil appears to have replaced snake oil as one of the preferred means of reducing the mass inside your wallet.
These additives, at best, have a one-time effect of cleaning parts inside the engine to allow it to run more efficiently. Nevertheless, those types of cleaners are available at your local car parts or hardware store, usually much less expensively, and do not have to be added to every tankful, as these outfits claim, because they do not do anything to the gas to make it more efficient.
For real benefits, you could buy a more fuel efficient car, or just take the proven advice offered on the following website:
Sierra Club: Filling Up For Less
hho