@voteforpeja: So you're saying that my body is burning oxygen with a flame, and I'm breathing out CO2 smoke?

GeekyNerdGuy

@GeekyNerdGuy: "as far as I know, there are no biological systems that use combustion." Look up "respiration". Or are you one of those people that doesn't breathe out C02?

voteforpeja

Are you guys kidding ? That's not worthy it !

How many bottles of Bling water we are talking about ?

jenheta

Can water ever really be lost short of sending it into space? Hmm, I guess the other hydrogen-powered fuel cell car that generates water as exhaust may be better after all.

Nintenboy01

It's a shame they had to base it on the Riva G-Wiz:

+ Watch video

BobbyMelbourne

@kaneshadow: No, you see, the real trick is to 'burn' water fast enough to compensate for the rising sea levels...

I Think We're Property

Hmmm. I feel like I've seen these somewhere...

+ Watch video

SeattleTed

@Namster: Instead of regular or premium, you have your choice of Ozarka or Fiji.

GeekyNerdGuy

@LuigiHayabusa: water bottles at gas stations already cost more than this ;)

Namster

You should check out www.teslamotors.com if you think electric cars have to be slow and gay....

phantom68

I bet with a couple of hoses, we can make it run on bong water.

MagnoliaBoy

@Red Right Hand: Yeah, but make sure you hit the target because the getaway is rather slow.

GeekyNerdGuy

@92BuickLeSabre:
He's not saying woo, that's just the air escaping from his folds of fat.

(2 pop culture references in the same thread... have I overdone it?)

kaneshadow

Just because it's not buring hydrocarbons doesn't mean it's good for the environment. There's a finite amount of water in the world, which normally stays in the system, but if you're breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen you're removing it from the system. Which means if it goes on unchecked for long enough we'll turn the entire planet into a desert.

Which is why I'm buying Melange futures. See you on the Golden Path suckers

kaneshadow

@UniComp: I'm buying and keeping them all until I teach them how to run on woo.

*turns the Bing Crosby back on*

92BuickLeSabre

You can't beat an electric car for a nice quiet approach for a driveby shooting.

Red Right Hand

I keep hearing about all these amazing new cars that run on renewable energy, but where the hell are they?

UniComp

In a releated story, water predicted to hit $4.00 per gallon by end of year.

LuigiHayabusa

@readams: How do you know they're burning the hydrogen? Haven't you ever seen a saltwater battery?

GeekyNerdGuy

Some company down here in FL is claiming to have a device that does something similar. They are supposedly installing them in police cruisers in Broward County.

Voyou_Charmant

@t0ne:
Whatever dude, my perpetual motion Harley Roadster is awesome. Screw the laws of physics.

citizensmith

@t0ne: I still have my fingers crossed for a car that runs on woo.

92BuickLeSabre

This is not and will never be a system that allows you to extract energy by splitting water and burning the resulting hydrogen and oxygen. Splitting the water requires at least as much energy as you get from burning the hydrogen, which involves... putting the water back together.

If you ever see a system that claims to get energy out, but the state of the system is the same after a full cycle as it was before the cycle started, you can be sure that it's bogus, as this is a perpetual motion machine by definition.

readams

@GeekyNerdGuy: " as far as I know, there are no biological systems that use combustion."

Does lighting one's own farts count?

[two fart jokes in one day! beat that, bitches!]

bobdobbs' MBA misses LindsayJoy's MBP

:YAWN:: Every year or so another bogus "inventor" announces their "secret" "revolutionary" technology for cars that run on water, engines that run on magnets, perpetual motion or other woo. Its all crap.

Of course they keep it secret! That way they get press and maybe investors without having to face scientific review.

Color me unimpressed.

t0ne

I'm in. Driving electric vehicles is great. Quiet and smooth as hell.

FrankenPC

I think power created through non-combusting chemical reactions is the future. Each step we take forward in technology creates things that work more and more like a biological system, and as far as I know, there are no biological systems that use combustion.

I think real progress lies in emulating nature.

GeekyNerdGuy

where's the line start?

oilers84

Electric Car: (in a weak, nasely voice) "I'm an electric car. I don't go very fast, and if you drive me, people will think you're gay"

mferrari

This would be a good car for me, because I also run on water and air.

92BuickLeSabre

@MagnoliaBoy: Oops, Reuters, pretty much the same thing... British accent though...

MagnoliaBoy

Uh, that's a Japanese car, on the BBC,...

MagnoliaBoy

File this article under:

"Why Americans (and Gizmodo editors) need to pay more attention in science class."

Their claims are impossible. Energy MUST be expended to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen.

Jesus turned water into wine.

NO ONE can turn water into energy.

ThriftyTechie

@GeekyNerdGuy: More or less. Not to be too much of a nerd, but respiration is sometimes referred to as "slow combustion". You start with a hyrdocarbon and oxygen and you get energy, C02, and H20. "Smoke" is an unwanted byproduct. Mostly what your car, or any kind of fire, puts out is C02 and H20.

This car is not magic tech that acts like something "natural", therefore better. Sounds like this process involves a catalyst that gets used up and has to be refreshed--probably with electricity, which means ultimately fossil fuels.

voteforpeja

@homerjay: Arrakis, Dune, Desert planet. The only Planet in the universe that contains the spice Melange.

MagnoliaBoy

@kaneshadow: Merange futures?? Where are you going to get that many egg whites to power your car?? Don't expect me to go without a topping for my lemon merange pie just so you can get around.

and so on...

homerjay

@danger_the_pirate: But isn't respiration a form of oxidation?

GeekyNerdGuy

Why is all energy efficient cars and trucks have to look so freaking gay?

FritzLaurel

Dang, we have a Smart Car and I put a woofer box in the back that's the size of that generator because the stock radio sucks. How do you think the sound system is in this thing? Lol

p1p3r

From reading the article, it does sound like maybe their including a non-water fuel in their somewhere, with mentions of a "fuel-air electrode" and few other questionable quotes. On the other hand, I would be not at all surprised for the to be, as has so eloquently been put "woo". It does kind of seem that way.

icelight

@GeekyNerdGuy: no, you just arent familiar with all the types of combustion. it doesnt have to be firey and hot and have smoke: [en.wikipedia.org] and it doesnt have to be bad for the environment, combusting hydrogen results in water vapor. its just another term that not many people know the full definition of. for example: you can boil water at room temperature. not many people understand what boiling is, same with combustion.

danger_the_pirate

wow i'm the first buyer

waza

@godai: I hope it's a mucuous membrane.

GeekyNerdGuy

@mferrari: "One of us, one of us."

RobotVampire

@thriftytechie:

Energy is being used. There's a chemical process going on. The energy being used is there.

We just don't know exactly because they are keeping it under wraps.

The membrane will probably have to be replaced every so often.

godai

giz, how could you portray this as a violation of thermodynamics. If you don't understand the basic underlying principles, don't post it. It can't work as described here. As others mentioned, it either doesn't work, or it uses electricity as a fuel and stores that energy as hydrogen.

jkr2

i bet it runs at 10mph or low. i will keep driving my truck until something better comes out.

GrandJackAuto

dieses auto sieht wirklich alt und hässlich!

Tohe

Why didn't they show the guys feet when he was driving? I'll tell you why... because he was peddling his ass off!

Uncle Remus

People on this site are so pessimistic. It can't be done. It's not real. NO NO NO. You can't make lightbulbs that burn over 24 hours. You can't split atoms without blowing up the world. Shut up. Just shut the hell up you nattering naybobs of negativity.

cafenitro

say what?

Tohe

I call bullshit. You could have a great electric car for the amount of energy required to split water into H & O.

photophile

Not sure what their process entails but some guys at purdue figured out a way to extract hydrogen with an aluminum alloy... [www.physorg.com]

wsder

@ThriftyTechie:
All it means is they found a way to unlock the massive amount of POTENTIAL energy present in water through a means that involves less energy than it releases. Cars do this now and the whole process of nuclear fission is the shining example of this method. So you complaint shows your utter lack of scientific knowledge. The problem in the past has always been it takes a lot of energy to break water into its base elements, at one time more energy than was actually released. This has been overcome for years now, but its still much less efficient than blowing up hydrocarbons.

BrookeCossus

@cafenitro: While I agree that it's bad science to immediately dismiss something because previous theories say it's impossible, it's also bad science to wishfully accept something as true just because of what it could offer you if it was. People love believing in things that will save them from rising gas prices, so if I'm a scam artist (and I'm not), I'm going to take advantage of this with flashy demonstrations and just-not-quite-absurd-enough claims.
I think the best thing to do when someone claims to have invented to engine that runs on water is ignore it entirely until it's demonstrated in an open way, and physicists confirm that it's doing what it claims to.

Think of it this way though: How can you take water, H2O, split it into 2H + O, extract useful energy, then return it to H2O to harmlessly emit out? The act of returning something to the state it started in (in this case, H2O -> H2O) will at worst, cost you energy, and at best, cause you to break even.

In short, I just don't buy it, and I don't think people should report on these things unless they've got more credibility than your run-of-the-mill perpetual-motion scam. Or at least should report on them with a greater degree of skepticism.

Plorry

@FritzLaurel:
Are you sure all those cars look gay?
[blogs.business2.com]

Migo

It is entirely possible to split the hydrogen off of H2O. It just requires another consumable such as aluminum. The aluminum oxidizes and strips off the oxygen from whatever is around it and releases hydrogen.

The problem of course is that:

a) the consumables cost money
b) they are often quite heavy
c) recycling the resulting material can be quite expensive
d) the energy you get from striping hydrogen out of water is by weight with something like aluminum is well less than burning gasoline

Now, a lot of these problems can be solved by producing hydrogen at a gas station instead of the car.

Aloisius

@BrookeCossus:
Go back to science class dude.
Cars release the energy inherent in gasoline in a process known as combustion. Water does not combust; water inherently contains less energy than hydrocarbons that make up gasoline.

nuclear fission can not be@cafenitro:
I hate to sound negative, but we here on earth are bound to certain laws of physics and thermodynamics. So, pardon if what I'm saying sounds negative to you. Pardon if I tell you that it is impossible for you to fly the way Superman does. Pardon if I tell you that solar power can NEVER be THE answer because the amount of power that the sun radiates on the earth is finite and limited. Pardon if I say that it takes an energy input to remove Hydrogen from water.

@Aloisius:
"The aluminum oxidizes and strips off the oxygen from whatever is around it and releases hydrogen.

The problem of course is that:

a) the consumables cost money
b) they are often quite heavy
c) recycling the resulting material can be quite expensive
d) the energy you get from striping hydrogen out of water is by weight with something like aluminum is well less than burning gasoline"

I believe that what you are saying is accurate.
To be clear, a) and c) both require energy input... the manufacture of aluminum is known for its high energy input.

Bottom line is that while there may be ways to strip hydrogen from water without a direct energy input (e.g., electrolysis), there is an energy input required somewhere in the process that exceeds the amount of energy in the Hydrogen. No one in the know would dispute that.

ThriftyTechie

@Plorry: Maybe it's not converting it back to H2O. Maybe it's converting it to some deadly carcinogen pollutant that takes milleniums to break down.

Ay, there is the rub.

GeekyNerdGuy

how many people can fit in that car? 1/2 maybe 2/3. It looks soooo small, how can i fit in that?

HawkSkater0

Flux Capacitor for the win.

Metkis

So now, they have to work on making the car look newer and not look like something that will immediately kill the people inside if it ever hits anything.

But how fast can this thing go? It may be nice helping the environment and all but going 50km/hr max isn't all that pleasing. Not to mention....water price is somehow magically going to skyrocket.

Deivion

This car would be sweet except in America we have hulking SUVs that I would be scared of driving that thing around. If they can put that engine in a sedan sized body I'd totally get one.

mcknn

so, the car uses chemical stuff that splits the h2o into h2 and o2. that's like electrolysis, that splits water with electricity (negatively charged cathode and positively charged anode) in h2 and o2 - but then without electricity. neat. but then the chemical stuff needs to be made. in a factory with electricity? if that electricity comes from fossil fuel then it's just shifting of the problem. and the chemical stuff costs how much? so, you are tanking not oil, but chemical stuff. and does the car convert the produced h2 and o2 back to h20? then that h2o could be used in the car again. no need to bring bottles with you and sounds like a perpetuum mobile - too good to be true.

jgamleus

would this work with salt water? cuz if it doesn't it seems as if it would create more problems then it solved.

kyel57

The humiliation of driving a car that looks like that is not worth the extra money saved at the pump.

HawkSkater0

EV1
nuff said

trunk666

@MastaFalse: There's at least two ways to look at this. There's the "Big Oil companies / dogmatic scientists are just trying to keep the little guy down by dismissing his fantastic tech as bunk," and the "Scam artists who play on your frothing desire for an easy answer to the energy crisis will make outrageous claims to gain investor money." And physical theory, evidence, as well as a 100% failure rate for the thousands who have made similarly fantastic claims in the past give us plenty of reason to suppose that this is the latter case.
Unless these guys are reinventing thermodynamic theory, it necessarily takes more energy to split water than you can possibly get from hydrogen gas.
I say innovate, but the burden of proof that the seemingly impossible can be done is on them. And a video where they won't show or tell you what's going on under the hood doesn't constitute proof to me.

Plorry

I agree. It's annoying that people will say without any hesitation that this can't be done. What are you so afraid of anyway?

MastaFalse

@voteforpeja and danger_the_pirate:
Apparently you aren't familiar with the difference between combustion and cellular respiration. "Slow combustion" is just a fancy term for cellular respiration, and it's misleading. True combustion does always result in heat output, but only warm-blooded animals produce heat through cellular respiration. Cold blooded animals just produce chemical energy, as do plants. Both combustion and cellular respiration are forms of oxidation, as are many forms of corrosion such as rust. But the definition of combustion involves the triangle of fuel, oxygen, and heat. Remove any side of the triangle and the combustion stops.

Purple Dave

@mferrari

at what $10.00 and galleon... people will think that you are broke...

And guess what.. they will be right...
have fun driving your dinosaur around :D

dOk

So you gotta wander ( well at least I do ) wether that thing would run on pee. You know get the water, drink it, hydrate your body, and then use the pee to power your car. Even less wasted resources if you ask me.

Honestly that is quite amazing - I can't wait with gas currently over $5 at some Los Angeles gas stations :(

StarControl

good technology, but really ugly though...........peace out

Ken
www.GeeeWhiz.com

moderndesignworks

Whether this particular idea works or not, I think we can all agree that the current state of affairs is unacceptable. We need to find a new fuel to power our modern technological civilization or things are going to get even more uncivilized than they are.
I would much rather give a crackpot 2 billion dollars to develop this than watch it burn up on a runway the way one of our stealth bombers did a few days ago.

gwolf

@Red Right Hand: Yeah, I saw that ep of Weeds too.

qbrad

That's not the Japanese car - its the REVA. It's an electric car from India!

Kittokino

"This is not and will never be a system that allows you to extract energy by splitting water and burning the resulting hydrogen and oxygen. Splitting the water requires at least as much energy as you get from burning the hydrogen, which involves... putting the water back together.

If you ever see a system that claims to get energy out, but the state of the system is the same after a full cycle as it was before the cycle started, you can be sure that it's bogus, as this is a perpetual motion machine by definition."

in fact, u dont need to burn hidrogen, u need to create a electric charge, using the electrons of the hidrogen(just like a battery does), about splitting the water, u can use a chemical catalizer, or electrolisis.

for create water again, u need : H2 + 1/2O = H2O AH = +68,3 Kcal

and for burning hidrogen plasma u need 60 000 000 celsius degrees.

and by de way, u need much more energy for making water then the energy u need to break a water molecule

cheers

HAG123546

@pradster: No shit, pradster!

michaelleung

Arghh! A shitty little G-Wiz! Quick, find me some Top Gear anti-G Wiz vids now!

michaelleung

@Kittokino: Good day Mr OBvious!

pradster

it's fake! dividing the water and hydrogen atoms costs you more energy than you will get by burning the water-molecules! if it's true, they developped nerly a perpetum mobile, what's impossible by nature ;)

fake!

decenator

That looks like Riva, a electric car from Bangalore, India!

saiko

The G-Wiz, which the car in the picture is based, is seen all around London, and those cars are about as safe as a skateboard on a motorway. Since they are not classified as cars and rather as "quadrocycles" or something like that, virtually no safety features are requred, and hardly any were added.

Green is good, but deathtrap is bad.

A car that runs on water is interesting though, but the guy who invented it will likely get assasinated by big oil.

Ham_Sandwich

@GeekyNerdGuy: Actually your wrong, in essence all organisms use Redox (shorthand for reduction/oxidation reaction) This describes all chemical reactions in which atoms have their oxidation number (oxidation state) changed.

According to wikipedia:

Biological energy is frequently stored and released by means of redox reactions. Photosynthesis involves the reduction of carbon dioxide into sugars and the oxidation of water into molecular oxygen. The reverse reaction, respiration, oxidizes sugars to produce carbon dioxide and water. As intermediate steps, the reduced carbon compounds are used to reduce nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), which then contributes to the creation of a proton gradient, which drives the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and is maintained by the reduction of oxygen. In animal cells, mitochondria perform similar functions.

Combustion is simply a rapid redox reaction of petroleum (aka very old dead trees).

In contrast this car uses electron migration of hydrogen through a membrane to create electricity (aka fuel cell), I can't think of anything in nature which replicates this process.

So essentially this is LESS like nature.

Navin R Johnson

Step 1. Put water in the tank.
Step 2. ?
Step 3. Energy

@Nintenboy01: It's true that we can't really "lose" water; however, the concern is that there would be less potable water. But, fortunately, since this car seems to run on a thermodynamic improbability, no worries.

frndlybnny

respiration=combustion?

Trevorblanco

It seems pretty obvious that there is no burning of the hydrogen, as they talk about fuel cells. Assuming the tech is real, this would seem to be more practical as a home generation unit to charge the batteries of your electric car. I would think the weight of the water necessary to go any distance would be prohibitive. I can't imagine that you could get many miles per gallon of water.

@GeekyNerdGuy: "there are no biological systems that use combustion."

Actually, they do, just without flames.

@LuigiHayabusa: "in a releated [sic] story, water predicted to hit $4.00 per gallon by end of year."

That ship sailed a long time ago, for those foolish enough, or forced to buy drinking water at the store.

@cafenitro: "Just shut the hell up you nattering naybobs of negativity."

Thank you Mr. Agnew.

@Plorry: "I don't think people should report on these things unless they've got more credibility than your run-of-the-mill perpetual-motion scam."

New around here?

@StarControl: "...then use the pee to power your car. Even less wasted resources if you ask me."

And we think exhaust fumes smell bad now!

Watch out for the pissy smog,
Don't you breath that yellow fog.
(Apologies to the late great Zappa)

gadgetplay

Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics. --Homer

LuciaAnt

BUNK! Bunk I say!!!

crazydave_w

Great now water prices are going to sky rocket, and we will be forced to drink gas!

I must say though, this seems much better then my gas chugging ford explore, i get like 10 mpg according to what the dash computer says. I cant wait for this car to come to america, They should make boats with this type of motor, u would never have to stop because it could just suck up the water its in.

HawkSkater0

Aw come on, you know the inventor of this tech is going to get wasted, and the blueprints are gonna end up in the bottom of a nuclear misile silo or something, and in the end, some short nerdy guy will just drive a tractor on a farm or something

(If I remember correctly...)

Isoko

I'm surprised this car isn't getting more praise. They've obviously found a way to use water to the greatest potential by using the binding energies in the atoms of H and O. Plus.. it uses sea water? That's impressive.. so water prices will not go through the roof. Obviously it will be slow, but that is not an issue for many non-americans.. and many americans as well. For those who have pride in their super fast cars.. well.. they can pay for them.

pardyhardy

Theres a guy that already made one of these things using the H2O 2000 HHO generator as the engine, the cool thing about the H2O 2000s technology tho is that the exhaust is water in return so there is absolutely no pollutants whatsoever, and if I remember right the millage on the thing is outrageous.

Borathian

You people make me weep, especially you pardyhardy.

In a month this will be completely forgotten and everyone will continue paying close to $5/gallon for gas, and some investors somewhere will have lost their life savings.

What is with the lack of critical thinking going on here? Didn't anyone take physics in high school?

vision4bg

@NoahOchu: Nice of your to put your two cents in before even reading the article. They sort of demonstrated a prototype in front of a bunch of people, so they've got something. Hopefully not some elaborate fake.

The only way to extract useable energy from water (regardless of what mechanism you use) is to put in slightly more energy than you get out

Aaah yes. The indomitable know-it-all-ness of the modern scientist. Reminds me of Lord Kelvin saying "heavier-than-air aircraft are impossible".

Pope John Peeps II

This is bullshit. Whichever way you cut it, they're either lying or most of physics is wrong. And since physics has produced space travel, computers, wordlwide communications, aviation (etc.) and the only thing this company has produced is an advert and no patents or figures I'd go with the former being reliable and the latter being bullshit. The only way to extract useable energy from water (regardless of what mechanism you use) is to put in slightly more energy than you get out, hence making it slightly less efficient than just connecting the motor to whatever battery or energy source is actually running the car.

NoahOchu

@citizensmith:
Ehl oh ehl

AndromedaEarthworm

but 1kW is only like 1.3hp, how can that power a car? they are usually at least 80hp or so

daversW

Running cars on water is old news, more than a century old now. If people only used their eyes and looked at the facts, not voice uneducated opinion…
We send rockets into outer space on hydrogen. That's hundreds of thousands of miles on one tank. But you don't need pure hydrogen to run a car you can use water (H20) Please note the "H" in H20. It takes only 12 volts to separate the hydrogen from oxygen in water. Pulling about 2 amps. NASA knows this. Why don't you? You can run a nice sexy looking car on hydrogen from water Yes I mean you. Put it in a modern BMW or Mercedes .Many people have done it. Run you car on less money and then spend it on the great girls you can now pick up.
Ken
Physics Teacher

kendodd

More to the above regarding running an engine see the work of someone who has really done his work go to www.hhowater4gas.com

kendodd

@kendodd: Your use of the phrase "yes, I mean you" and your linking to a site apparently designed by an 8-year-old lead me to question your objectivity on the subject at hand.

@Pope John Peeps II: Again, I agree that scientists can be stodgy, but really, what reason do we have to believe these guys other than that we like the claims they promise? That's a logical fallacy. They have plenty of incentive to make outrageous claims in order to attract investor money. Never trust anyone with something to sell.
Results are what matter, so there's really no point in arguing this, I guess, since we'll all see how this turns out.

Plorry

@kendodd:

Running cars on water is old news, more than a century old now. If people only used their eyes and looked at the facts, not voice uneducated opinion…
Many types of lie and fraud are old news. Your point?

I think you'll find it's best to use the brain for appraising facts, as the eyes have no ability to sort fact from fiction.

We send rockets into outer space on hydrogen. That's hundreds of thousands of miles on one tank.

Yes, and it takes a larger amount of energy to produce that hydrogen than the total produced by the thrust of the rocket. Plus those tanks are rather large.

It takes only 12 volts to separate the hydrogen from oxygen in water. Pulling about 2 amps. NASA knows this. Why don't you?

Your words are meaningless.

24 watts of power isn't much, but since you offer no insight into how much hydrogen that would produce, or how much energy could be obtained by reversing that reaction using a fuel cell or combustion, you're not actually making a point at all.

You can run a nice sexy looking car on hydrogen from water Yes I mean you. Put it in a modern BMW or Mercedes .Many people have done it. Run you car on less money and then spend it on the great girls you can now pick up.

Yes you can, and it always uses as at least much energy (in practice always more so far) than just using the energy to charge batteries.
Hydrogen is not a particularly good energy carrier anyway.

There are so many viable renewable sources of energy hydrogen is pretty much a time waster.

Ken
Physics Teacher

Really?

Then pray tell why you demonstrate such utter ignorance of the scientific Method, the laws of thermodynamics et cetera.

If you teach physics please qoute a figure for how much energy (watts per gallon, Kj/mole whatever you like) it takes to break the molecular bonds of H20, and show your working out.

NoahOchu

@Pope John Peeps II:

What makes you think I didn't read the original article?

It's just that reading the original article made no difference since it contains no facts at all.

Were you confused by the term "mechanism"? Did you think I had levers and pulleys in mind? How about process or system instead then?

Every success of science or any other form of critical thought has supported the observation that you can't get something for nothing.

You can get something for something, and with ingenuity you can get (relatively) more for less (called increasing efficiency) But you can't get something for nothing. Everything we know about the universe supports this, and there has never been a single reproducible demonstration which refutes it.

The article alludes to a chemical process, which IMO is a good choice of red herring, since the many electrolysis systems used in the past to defraud venture capitalists are too well known now.

There are two ways to run a car on water which spring to mind;

i) Crack the water for hydrogen and run a fuel cell/combustion based generator from it. This approach will use slightly more energy to crack the water (electricity or heat being the most obvious) than the fuel cell produces.

ii) Use a reduction reaction to free up the hydrogen, and then feed it into the fuel cell (or whatever). AHA! the semi-astute and partially science literate will say at this point, that doesn't require energy input. True, but what's the point if you have to carry a stock of chemicals to reduce the water which are used up and then have to be processed using more energy to recycle them? All you have achieved is moving the point at which the energy is inputted out of the car and into a factory.

You're basically just charging a (heavy inefficient) battery.

NoahOchu

@NoahOchu: Word.

Plorry

@qbrad: I don't watch the show...

Red Right Hand

Bring on the competition, baby! And I'm with KenDodd ... hydrogen is powerful and it takes not that much juice to liberate it. Find a simple, renewable and cost efficient means to liberate hydrogen and bada bing ... you've got bada boom.

ANYTHING to create competition to One Fuel To Rule The All. I don't have anything against gasoline, because I love to stomp on the Loud Pedal of 500 horses in a well made hot rod. Very manly and very damn satisfying. BUT .... gimme more of that old time competition in CHOICES, please.

Choice will drive innovation and innovation and choice will drive prices down on everything remotely connected to mobility.

BlackFlag55

I'm a little disappointed in the guys at gizmodo, maybe they don't know very much about physics. This is yet another "perpetual motion machine" hoax. You can't have an engine that takes water as fuel, emits water as exhaust, and produces energy. This is getting something for nothing. No amount of wishful thinking can make such a thing true, unless you first change some of basic laws of physics.

markshepherd

Ok then, what about EOLO car? The car that supposedly was going to run on compressed air?

Might just end up like that one... in a wooden crate next to Indian Jones' Lost Ark.

bigbluevoid

@qbrad: Thug means never having to say you're sorry. Cant wait for the new season to start tomorrow.

On topic: Complete and utter bullshit. Entropy = No magic energy thingys.

VishusBurn

Great. So I can go from paying $4 a gallon for regular to $8 a gallon for bottled water for running my car. Why not really gouge me an make a car that runs on Starbucks!

WorstPostEver

i bit and checked hhowater4gas, and then went looking for reality and found:

Math

dmenafro

FOOL SELL not Fuel Cell.

How I laugh at the scammers on this comments page like our expert friend "Ken the Physics Teacher" and salesman KenDodd (an alter ego perhaps) with their characteristic poor punctuation, pitiful grammer and inability to construct a sentence, let alone science.

We would all love this to be true. But it's not and there never will be a car powered by water alone unless the energy source comes from somewhere else. Water is itself a product of exothermic combustion - to reverse that process requires energy input.

That water may play a part in a process is perfectly possible. One might have a big tank of metal hydride to produce H2 as a source for a fuel cell, which they as are not talking about. One might have a car with a solar cell on the roof, providing electrical energy for electrolysis, although clearly not in this case.

Whatever the case, energy has to come from somewhere. Unlike Ken, I studied Chemistry at degree, masters and PhD level. Sorry folks. Wake up and smell the coffee - that at least will give YOU some energy. Scammers, go home !!

TristanA

@kendodd:

Correct: running cars on hydrogen + oxygen with a water output is old news. More than a century old -- well, I'm not so sure about that unless when you say "running on water" you mean "steam engine" which really isn't the same thing at all...

Can you get hydrogen from water with 12V @ 2A? Yes, certainly. I was doing it on less than that when I was a kid with a 12V battery, a pair of test tubes and some saline solution.

Electrolysis, of course, is terribly inefficient, but let's suppose we bend the laws of physics and discover a way to do electrolysis at 100% efficiency. How much potential energy (assuming we'll later use a 2H + O --> H2O conversion) can we get out of this? Well, as anyone that's studied about one semester of physics knows, that would be (12V)(2A) = 24W.

OK, now having supplied the energy to create the H and O, let's assume we combine it back together to make water and harness 100% of that energy (yes, yes, we both know that's not possible, but we'll pretend otherwise for the moment). If our energy input was 24W and we use that fuel in a conversion back to water we now have 24W of energy to drive our vehicle. 24W? That'll run the radio if you're lucky, but won't give you motive power! However, we're going to need this 100% efficient miracle process to split more water for us for fuel, so to make the next batch we have to use ALL THE ENERGY for making the fuel and have ZERO left over for powering the car. That's the best case 100% efficient scenario. We don't have enough power to do anything more than make more fuel. Of course, you can't have a 100% efficient process in the real world, so we actually don't even have enough power for that.

Does NASA use water and fuel cells? Sure, but it's more for power storage than creation. You use solar power in orbit to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen. You can then use the hydrogen and oxygen in fuel cells for times when you don't have enough solar power for the spacecraft. Very handy storage mechanism that is much lighter than lead-acid or other batteries: and at $10,000 per pound cost to lift equipment to orbit, that's important. However, it's still very inefficient -- it's just the best solution for that particular need.

Energy is conserved. That's a basic law of physics, and it has held up VERY well through centuries of experimental testing. If this car does convert water to hydrogen and oxygen and then back again, then it's getting its energy from elsewhere. The water may be part of the process, but it is NOT the fuel any more than water in a closed-cycle steam engine is fuel. It's a carrier of the energy, but whatever you burn in a steam engine is the fuel, not the water. This vehicle cannot be any different.

Why yes, I do have a degree in physics... TANSTAAFL!

gunnk

@bigbluevoid: You *can* run a car on compressed air. You put energy into the system when you compress the air. You get a portion of that back (nothing is 100% efficient) when you drive the car with it. No magic. The problem is that any significant vehicle will need a LOT of compressed air to go very far because you can't store much energy that way. There's no magic there. It hasn't caught on because you can't meet the rule of thumb for a successful car: good power, acceleration and top speed for 4 passengers and cargo with a range of 300 miles.

However, I'd love something like that for my two mile trip to work for one driver/no passengers.

gunnk

Hey, let's connect this up to a fuel cell! We'd get free energy!

But wait! We can't have free energy! We know this because those mean scientists who use long words like "thermodynamics" tell us so!

So either fuel cells can work, or this can work.
Fuel cells work. Therefore, this can't.

blipflip

They are obviously using some form of catalyst.

Nemesisesq

Wow...lots of fun reading.

Take a look at this: [www.horizonfuelcell.com]

Just add water to the cartridge and the borax-based powder releases hydrogen.

Some of the largest deposits of this stuff are in the Mojave desert and mined in California.

shawn_dude

Would all you naysayers please tie an onion to your belt so we can more easily identify you? Thanks. While it's true that TANSTAAFL, I think the statement about the "proprietary technology called the Membrane Electrode Assembly" is the key here. The MEA obviously does the hard work, just how remains to be seen.
Or you can just hide under your rock mumbling how the earth is flat, people can't fly, and you'll never need more than 1MB for computer storage.

Snicker

what a HORRIBLE idea. Running cars on food, on water? Its a terrible idea because WE need those things, a hell of a lot more than the car does.

Now an electric car, thats where we need to be going. This whole hydrogen car approach is just a scam, or if its not a scam its a false messiah. I did just watch "Who killed the electric car" so Im probably biased, but it does seem like the only reasonable approach to solving independant mobility in an oil crisis.

Oh and to debunk a couple other solutions a bit:

-Drilling for more oil is a temporary solution at best.
-Hydrogen powered vehicles are a lie perpetrated by conglomerates who want to keep the "fuel" part of the equation in the system. No one benefits from hydrogen except the people who are already benefiting from oil.

Its not that good of a video in my opinion but if you havnt seen "Who killed the electric car" and you want to know what the sh*t an electric car is I highly reccomend it

pevans34

We already have ultra small cars that run on water. Who cares? Old news! None of these systems are powerful enough to haul around a normal size SAFE car.

JEmlay

@shawn_dude: Horizon fuel cell cartridge refill costs "$20 for each 270Wh". If your electric company charges you 13 cents a kiloWatt-hour, that's 570 times as expensive.

@Snicker: The MEA obviously does the hard work, just how remains to be seen
This unsubstantiated video and your rah-rah handwaving is so much better than the actual science of thermodynamics, the Carnot cycle, and chemical reactions, which are all well understood, make detailed predictions that experiment verifies to several decimals of precision, and are based on a solid theoretical underpinning right down to the quantum electrodynamics level. "Remains to be seen" indeed.

skierpage

this will disappear overnight and all associated will be aether rich or dead.
too many fat cats will lose too much money for this to be realized.

Silverback

And when your out of water and air, you can refuel by takin a piss and fart on the tank. Or it will probably go pretty far just on it's big pile of ugliness...

bu11etman

The only way something like this will work is if someone gives the technology to the world for free. Anyone trying to make money off a machine that provides free energy will be killed before they can get a patent.

ChemEng

I have a extensive knowledge about Physics, Chemistry, Thermodynamics and I am a huge out of the box thinker. I personally believe that something like this is feasible and possible. Of course goverments would not be happy about it because the person that controls the energy controls the power. They lose their control of energy, they lose their power so they are going to do their damnest to prevent something like this from happening. Ok so now I'm going off on a tangent... Back to the subject.

Yes there are some major theories here that don't seem to hold water here (no pun intended). 1st is the law of energy. Energy is not created nor destroyed. This invention never claims any of that. The second is no machine is 100% efficient. Once again this invention doesn't claim that. All that is surmised by people with probably no more than a high school diploma.

How about this little theory. Someone has found a way to convert 40 degree H2O to H2 and O2. Then when they recombine them the resulting product is 35 degree water. There by you've removed energy from the system which you now utilize for whatever you want. At 5 cal for each gram you convert you can get quite a bit of energy very quickly.

Also there are some ignorant comments about how we'll use up all our water??? The car is just converting the water input right back to water.

So with all this the only thing I would say is one of 3 things.
1.) they found a way to extract heat from water in a 100% self sustaining system.
2.) They are degrading their electrodes that they are using in that yes you are only adding water but eventually you'll have to replace your batter electrodes. Of course replaceing some metal electrodes may still out weight gas costs. Of course they mention that you don't have to "add" anything besides water but this interpretation can be misleading.
3.) This is a hoax and they are trying to swindle you out of your money.

With all this said, the system can always be scaled up so us Americans can continue driving our huge SUV and muscle cars. At least this way life style of being spoiled glutons won't be affected. Why are Americans so convinced on having cars be a status symbol anyway. I would like it more if we all drived around smaller vehicles.

All I can say if energy becomes free this world is going to have some drastic changes very quickly.

I think Snicker is right on. If everyone always listented to the ignorant we would still be on a flat planet that the sun revolved around, we wouldn't have flight, and there'd be no use for a personal computer.

In reality if we would all believe that everyting happened because "God" wanted it that way or if that is what we were told we would be nowhere. If human intellignece and ingenuity never gave us a significant advantage over predators and prey we'd and probably still be eating bananas and swinging from trees. But even if that was the case at least the lions would eat the stupid ones to impreove the gene pool. Luckily for all the dumb people out there we eliminated all the "lions" so even the stupid can breed among us. Luckily for man kind we have some peoplse who are capable of thinking "there has to be a better way". Because quite frankly there ALWAYS IS!

ChemEng

What about Stan Meyer's water engine that pulled the hydrogen out of water with very low voltage that would be supplied by the car's battery which is then charged by the alternator like a traditional car?

The video demonstrations are convincing.

I think if we had the world's best and brightest working on something like this it could be done. Maybe it already has been. Didn't someone kill Stan?

casewon

What was Stan Meyer's water car all about then? Was that debunked? The videos of his demonstrations seem convincing.

It seems that if we had the world's best and brightest working on something like this it would be a reality. Guess I'm a conspiracy theorist. Big oil killed Stan ;)

casewon

STANLEY MEYER had invented water-running engine a while ago. Check out his name. Watch a movie called "IT RUNS ON WATER" - no BS. Only short-sighted pricks and paid-to-blog/bash will say negative things, downplaying the whole thing. Those who believe they know everything are the fools - science is not stagnant and is not written in stone. Powers that rule us have been doing great work suppressing all research on free energy. Energy is THE key to ruling our industrialized world, - do not underestimate the elite. What they are afraid of is our state of mind, that is if we wake up from the sleep we've been put in by them they'll be down and over real quick. Their grasp on our morality/mentality is their main weapon against us. So, - fall in line or revolt against the SYSTEM? The choice is yours.

CuiBono

Most Americans are "gay" - that's why their comments are also "gay." Just kidding.. don't get all fired up.. he he But seriously, so many people are fooled by the Big Oil that the only fuel out there is fossil or electric that they piss on the idea of free energy, a topic, long suppressed by the governments around the world, but particularly, by US Gov Inc. Check out this name: STANLEY MEYER. There's a movie called "It Runs On Water" - no BS. Those who try so HARD to bash (crash) the idea of using WATER as energy are either short-sighted ppl or paid-to-blog/bash bastards. I want to see and live in the world where WE don't need them (the ruling elite), the world without the tyrants who use all means to keep us down. Energy is THE key to our industrialized world and they use it to control whole economies. C'mon, we can kick'em in the nuts if we rid ourselves of their chains and shackles. They are afraid to lose the grip on our mental state they've nurtured in us for eons now. If masses wake up there will be no turning back. Don't support the elites' system of power, their pyramid of control - believe in yourself and the common folk around you - we're capable of wonders if we strive for them.

CuiBono

Now, if you could make a car that runs on Mentos and Diet Coke, you might be on to something...

BEERxTaco

"The car as it is described by Genepax is a Perpetual Motion device. Such a device or system would be in violation of the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy can never be created or destroyed, and is therefore improbable. If Genepax would succeed in proving that their claims are true, then the theory of relativity as well as other aspects of modern science will be disproven.

The only alternative would be that Genepax is currently misleading the media as well as the public, and that a different source of energy is used for the car."

[en.wikipedia.org]

BEERxTaco

@gunnk:
you made an ass of yourself. You ASSumed that electrolysis was used. Worse, you then infer fuel cells. You may have a piece of paper that claims you've achieved some knowledge in physics.  But your common sense is right out of a Cracker Jack box.   Just to let you know since your somewhat ill-informed.  The first over-unity device was invented in 1944.  It's called the atomic bomb.   Ty

ColemanIsmene

I have to agree with gunnk, that this does break a law a physics to do with energy conservation. However there are exceptions to this rule that are exceptionally simple. With water as an example, if you have a very thin tube water will move up it not matter how high it may be. From a macro-level point of view this should be impossible, but molecules behave very differently at a nanoscale level.

That all said, there's definitely a catch here. I hope it works but I'm a non-believer.

noirdreams