Hydro-4000 fuel injection device; Boing Boing Huckster Dismantling Squad: Assemble!
A device called the "Hydro-4000" claims to inject hydrogen into your car's engine, synthesized from water using power from your car, to increase the efficiency of the combustion in the chamber. A local news crew in Florida tested the device on a news truck and claimed the Hydro-4000 increased their fuel efficiency from 9.4 MPG to 23.2 MPG after a one-month road test.
But something's screwy. Look at these numbers:
Once done, we found that even with an oil change, clean air filter and proper tire pressure, we were averaging roughly 9.4 miles to the gallon.So they were getting 9.4 MPG before, then got 23.2 MPG after, but that's only a 61% increase? (I'm not a mathlete, but even without a calculator I can see we should be looking at triple-digit percentage improvements.) And then they "road-tested" it but didn't get as much efficient as they did on the dyno, which makes sense, but also makes me question how they were measuring fuel efficiency in the first place.We then ran our truck on the street for close to a month with the Hydro-4000 running. The owners said this would give the device time to clean out the engine. We then put our vehicle back on the dynamometer, and did the same test all over again.
And guess what? With the device on, we were now averaging 23.2 miles to the gallon. That's 61% better than the gas mileage we were previously getting.
We also road tested the device. There we averaged 16-point-one miles to the gallon, which is 58% better than before.
Farhad Manjoo talked to the president of Green Machine Solutions who makes the device; he's trying to get one for review.
So what's going on here, huh? I'll throw out my usual disclaimer: If these things worked as well as they claimed, why aren't they installed in cars at the factory? I wonder if it's just somehow cleaning out the injectors and bringing the vehicle more closely in line with its original capability.
Device promises to save 60% at the pump [WPTV.com] (Thanks, Mark!)
Product Page [Hydro4000.com]
the latest
latest episodes
Just think about this for a minute and you'll realize this is just hogwash. The main thing that gets people here is that most laypeople don't have a very firm grasp of thermodynamics and energy. Breaking this device down into its constituent parts, we have a conversion step and a usage step. The conversion step takes energy from the alternator (mechanical to electrical conversion) and runs the electrolysis device (electrical to chemical). Assuming the stated 65-70% efficiency, you are still out with less energy than you put in. Now, any energy pulled from the alternator originally came from the engine, which means... yup, now the whole system just got less efficient. I love how the website says that they use "an underutilized electrical source that already exists (the excess, unused capacity of an automobile alternator, for instance)" as if that was like free energy. The alternator is NOT a storage device. It converts engine power to electrical power, and the more electrical power it creates, the more the engine is loaded, and therefore the more fuel is consumed.
Clearly garbage. As most of these things are. I hesitate to say 'all', since it's possible someone will make an actual breakthrough. At best, this thing would give you no added power or efficiency, since all power used to turn water to hydrogen came from the car engine in the first place. Why not just apply that power to the wheels instead of converting it to hydrogen and then converting that back into engine power....that goes to the wheels. Assuming perfect conversion efficiency at each step, you gain nothing. With actual real-world conversion efficiency, you lose energy at each step.
As for their maths, my guess is they went for (23.2 - 9.4)/23.2 to get their wonderful 60% improvement, instead of say 23.2/9.4 to get the 'real' 247% improvement.
The Mythbusters tried one of these and said it was totally bogus.
Farhad Manjoo has issues with reading for comprehension. Where he says:
"And in online forums, some people report getting better gas mileage after installing such devices"
The thread that comment is from is here, and clearly shows the comment he linked to is about using acetone and *not* a hydrogen booster.
A: Any argument utilising "Think About It" or "Just Think About It": Not scientific.
B: The News Crew did more than just install the device, so we do not know if the performance boost is from the device.
C: The real test: Install the device, run for a month or better without using it, instigate a high-speed highway chase, and turn the device on. If you suddenly get better mileage, SALES ARE GUARANTEED.
#1: In addition: Electrolysis is incredibly inefficient. This thing burns fossil fuels in order to crack water; It would be far more efficient to leave that to the chlorophyll.
I believe that the argument being made by the makers of such devices (when they bother to make one at all) is that injecting hydrogen gas into air intake aids more complete combustion thus increasing efficiency and reducing emissions. Clearly they are wasting energy to crack water and then burn it, so they must be claiming a pretty incredible increase in efficiency for the hydrogen + gasoline combustion.
"what we've done is brought oxygen, similar to what race car drivers do, to hydrogen, which is a higher burning has to also make sure you're burning every bit of fuel you're paying for at the pump,"
I'm not a chemist but: WTF?
My reading of this is that they started with the idea that you can increase combustion efficiency by adding more oxygen to the reaction chamber. This sounds fine to me, although I can't be bothered to work out whether the energy gained from reacting oxygen with the previously wasted fuel would exceed the energy required for electrolysing the water.
But then they say that they're adding all the hydrogen along with the oxygen and that it's a "higher burning gas". So they're expecting all the extra oxygen to react with the hydrogen? Fair enough, but this removes all the excess O2 that they were hoping would improve the fuel burn. And as posters above have already pointed out, those pesky laws of thermodynamics prohibit using this as an energy source.
There is one potential get-out that I can think of. Plenty of websites exist about similar systems and I've just spent some time reading through the more sane-sounding examples. All of them mention adding a "catalyst" to the water, with most specifying a strong base such as NaOH or KOH.
A true catalyst wouldn't be enough to explain these results, but I can imagine that a more complex reaction between water, the additives and the electrodes could be assisting hydrogen production. So some of the energy going into the electrolysis could be supplied by a second exothermic reaction. The experimenters wouldn't necessarily notice this, other than seeing the increased yield and that they'd need to replace their electrodes more often. Unfortunately I'm not enough of a chemist to say how plausible this idea is, or how much energy might be produced by such a reaction.
Shouldn't that headline be "Huckster Dismantling Squad: Dis-Assemble!"?
I can just imagine how there's going be tons of comments from "smart" guys about how there's no free energy so this must not work.
Before commenting think about
1) how much energy is produced during combustion?
2) how much of it is used to move the car?
3) how much of it is lost in heat/etc?
if you don't know these number for an I/C (diesel vs gas/etc) , then you may not know as much as you think.
I'm not claiming this works , it probably doesn't , but I see in boingboing a lot of people that comment and don't even bother reading anything besides the title.
A very large grain of salt is needed here.
Whenever I see a device with claims like this, I wonder why any locale or group that couldn't care less who owns the idea hasn't ripped it off and cloned it.
Waitaminit! Think it through remembering that automobiles are terribly inefficient. There is a good likelihood of some net gain for a well designed and implemented device of this type, though probably not the magnitude mentioned.
First - forget the electrolytic aspects and you have a crude water/water vapor injector. These are old news and old tech, also, proven tech - they work. There are negative trade-offs such as increased long-term engine damage, but they work and are an old school hack for goosing clunkers not otherwise expected to have a long life. They require additional tweaks such as advancing the timing and leaning out the mix, and reduce emissions to boot.
Second - real auto subsystems are inefficient and poorly coupled. (There is a ton of waste heat, for example, remember, turbo chargers work, using "free energy"; "free" because it is otherwise "waste energy".) Sure, if you jump a dead battery you can generally hear the rpms drop, but if you plug a small map light into the lighter, there is no effect. Because of the existing inefficiencies, you can add a certain small amount of additional load to the electrical system without adding a fully compensating additional load to the engine, let alone to the wheels. If you can get enough free juice out of your system to electrolyze water and thereby add some free 2(H2+O2) to the water injection, you will get an additional "free" power boost.
I would expect the combined effect to be small, and to be efficacious in proportion to the clunkiness of the car -- more benefit from a 60's era pick-up than a 2008 sub-compact, but the technology cannot be simply dismissed - the benefit (or absence of benefit) of each application of each implementation on each vehicle has to be empirically determined.
This is nothing like water injection. That works because when you heat up water, it expands and that heat was originally waste energy. The expansion provided by the water would probably allow you to reduce the amount of fuel you inject and thus increase the efficiency. This is talking about using electricity to split water in to hydrogen and oxygen and then injecting the hydrogen into the engine.
Electrolysis, as someone else already pointed out, is increadibly inefficient and regardless of whether YOU can detect the load on the engine, it's there. There is no free lunch. To use your example: plug a map light into your cigarette lighter. Turn off your car and leave the light on. It'll still kill your battery, it just takes a while. When you turn the car on, the engine has to run harder at a given speed in order to charge the battery. It's no different if the car is running when you're adding that map light.
From what I know of combustion engines and thermodynamics, this sounds like bunk.
The linked article says "in any engine, roughly 15% of the gas isn't burned."
Some of the touted efficiency gains are supposedly due to hydrogen gas causing more efficient combustion, meaning that the 15% of unburned fuel actually gets consumed. Suppose that this is true: 85% of the fuel sent to the engine is responsible for 100% of the power produced prior to any modifications. The efficiency gain caused by burning this otherwise unburnt fuel is:
(.15/.85)*100 = 12.75%
So, supposing that the article's 15% assertion is true, harnessing the power of the unburnt fuel would seem to give only a 12.75% efficiency boost. Obviously, this is far short of a hypothetical 50% gain in efficiency.
Let's assume that water is *not* being sent to the engine, and that the device sends only hydrogen or a hydrogen/oxygen mixture of gas to the engine. With a 50% efficiency gain and 12.75% efficiency gain attributable to complete combustion of gasoline, that means that an additional 37.25% efficiency boost must come from hydrogen gas combustion.
The efficiency of the typical automobile engine/drivetrain is around 20%. A 50% increase in fuel economy means that the overall efficiency of the system is 30%. Assuming that more complete fuel combustion leads to a 12.75% effiency boost, the net gain in overall system efficiency owing to improved hydrocarbon combustion is:
20% * .1275 = 2.55%
Assuming that hydrogen combustion gives a 37.25% efficiency boost, the net gain owing to hydrogen combustion is:
20% * .3725 = 7.45%
Double-checking the math: Add the two efficiency gains up, and we a have 2.55% gain plus a 7.45% gain on top of the 20% base efficiency, which gives us the overall system efficiency of 30% that we would expect with a 50% boost in fuel economy.
The alternator presumably supplies energy to the electrolysis device used to create hydrogen. Let's assume that the hydrolysis process used to create hydrogen gas is 50% efficient. In other words, it takes twice as much energy to produce the hydrogen from water as we get back when we burn it to create water. This means that 7.45% * 2 = 14.9% of the overall efficiency losses are due to surplus power going to the alternator.
Overall, the vehicle is 20% efficient at converting the chemical energy in gasoline to the mechanical energy that moves the car. The math shown suggests that 14.9% of the chemical energy that doesn't go to producing mechanical energy at the wheels goes to producing electrical energy at the alternator.
So if this device can really increase fuel economy by 50%, it would seem that would require the alternator to sap 14.9% of the engine's efficiency. Nearly 75% of the energy that goes to the wheels would have to go the alternator.
If a 50% efficiency gain with one of these devices were possible, why then don't you see an approximately 75% efficiency gain simply by disconnecting the alternator? In other words, does anybody have a car that produces 100 horsepower at the rear wheels while simultaneously producing nearly 75 horsepower at the alternator?
the comments reminds me of an episode of the public radio show THIS AMERICAN LIFE. I think in that episode, Ira defines the topic American Jackass as well meaning people talking with certainty about things they don't quite know. For example tourist pointing to various art saying that's very baroque , or a friend telling you that saturated fats are bad but doesn't know why except that they are worse than non-saturated fats.
Most of the comments are based on what little the commentator knows i.e. what they retain from high school. certainly no engineering perspective / system analysis / understanding of 80-20 rule / or efficiency.
I'm going to give my opinion without trying to be smart , this crap doesn't work because it's crap. Look it up , companies do make hydroxy injectors for commercial diesel trucks that do work decently. You don't need science or math to conclude that a green piece of PVC crap sold for over $1000 is most likely a rip off. if you do, you are the definition of American Jackass.
I especially like the guy saying this is nothing like water injector (huh, what exactly do you get when you put H's and O's together?)
Also, so much long calculations w/o real world understanding. no mention of where gas is used/wasted (no mention of idle, city vs. highway, acceleration) if you could use an alternative source during idle and city , little boost during acceleration you could easily double you mileage (electric hybirds anyone?) hydrogen could do the same just not from a green piece of crap.
next thing you people will be telling me that paying to put nitrogen in my tires is a waste of money...
Take a look at this article. http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2005/11/69529 Nuff said.
As Farhad Manjoo points out in his Machinist piece: "drivers may have adjusted their driving styles after installing the hydrogen boost..." This is the nub of it - people always drive more steadily (and economically) when they are being monitored, and the driver is BY FAR the biggest variable in measuring fuel consumption.
An hour's tuition by a good instructor can easily improve even an experienced driver's fuel economy by 15% or so - and make them a safer and more considerate driver to boot.
My suggestions for saving a significant amount of fuel:
(My credentials for this? I was a tester and then Technical Editor of a major commercial vehicle magazine for ten years, testing the performance and fuel consumption of vans and trucks. I have a Mechanical Engineering degree. And just so you don't think I'm a hair-shirt environmentalist, I run a 1972 Mercedes and subscribe to Hot Rod. Ahem.)
Here in the UK, fuel has hit almost $10 a (US) gallon, so using less of it is an important economic concern as well as a crucial environmental issue. Modern vehicles emit far fewer toxic pollutants (NOx, hydrocarbons, particulates etc.) than older designs, so the best way you can measure your "greenness" is to simply monitor the amount of fuel you use.
I would disregard Channel 5's results, because there was no control to the 'test' at all. And the same goes for Hydro 4000's 'Testimonals' (sic)
And sorry, #17, but just because something is in Wired doesn't make it true. This is snake oil - well-presented snake oil, but snake oil nonetheless. I suggest you take a look here and here for some much more clear, reasoned and informed comment.
Apologies for going on like this, but these things make me cross: just where are all those trails of "unburnt" fuel (15%! 20%!) dribbling out of exhaust pipes?
Timat says that this is nothing like water injection, but that is not correct. They do not claim to inject pure hydrogen and oxygen, but to inject a mixture of hydrogen, oxygen, water vapor and water. Regardless of why they say it works, if they lean the mix and advance the timing as part of the installation tweaks, then they are, in part, water injecting. Ergo, one can't say it can't work on purely theoretical grounds, because water injection does work.
Likewise one cannot hang a theory of why this cannot work on undetectable, immeasurable effects, or what happens with the engine off. The simple "no free lunch" argument was used to "prove" turbo chargers cannot work and failed there for the same reason, it assumes perfect efficiency of the automotive system.
In the classic configuration, you have an engine with a lot of belt driven junk hung off it, including an alternator. The alternator rpm is totally decoupled from the electrical load on it in all but contrived extreme situations. this means that there is no theoretical bar to increasing that load without further loading the engine to an extent which would impact net power delivery to the ground. (Drive for a month with the radio on when driving, and then for a month with the radio off when driving and compare your mileage. Now do it using an inverter and slow charger to charge gobs of AA batteries. You will see no effect on mileage, but you will have "free" energy which could hydrolize water which could be used to augment fuel. )
In the end, this type of technology requires empirical testing, not dismissal based on inapplicable "no free lunch" arguments, especially since water injection is part of the package, whether advertised as such or not.
"I'm going to give my opinion without trying to be smart, this crap doesn't work because it's crap."
Fail, if it doesn't work then why does it work?
"If a 50% efficiency gain with one of these devices were possible, why then don't you see an approximately 75% efficiency gain simply by disconnecting the alternator?"
Your assumptions must be wrong. You factor in the drive train for some strange reason. The car has the same transmission before and after installing the device.
Demonstrated results, discounting fraud, should trump armchair theory every time.
"any energy pulled from the alternator originally came from the engine, which means... yup, now the whole system just got less efficient."
Then why is the whole system more efficient?
"This is snake oil - well-presented snake oil, but snake oil nonetheless."
They have a demonstrated 60% increase of fuel efficiency. You can only account for 15% of that. Where is the other 45% coming from? (hint: unburned fuel)
"where are all those trails of "unburnt" fuel (15%! 20%!) dribbling out of exhaust pipes?"
This is beyond stupid. Do you really expect to see it?
"I especially like the guy saying this is nothing like water injector (huh, what exactly do you get when you put H's and O's together?)"
He's right, and you're an idiot if you think burning H and O2 to get water is the same as injecting water.
Here's a thought. What if internal combustion engines made by the same corporations that killed electric cars in collusion with the oil industry are horribly inefficient? Perhaps even deliberately so because increasing it would cost money, cutting into profits, and gas has been ridiculously cheap for a long time. Oh wait! We already know they are. We already know that IC engines waste a lot of fuel and a certain percentage goes out the exhaust. So someone comes along with a device that burns fuel more efficiently. Then a bunch of internet know-it-alls try to invoke the second law. Because....... efficient combustion violates natures laws?
NEON
>> "I'm going to give my opinion without trying to
>> be smart, this crap doesn't work because it's crap."
> Fail, if it doesn't work then why does it work?
have you openned up one of these? it's made of hardware store parts and the design is inefficient (they throw 12VDC to do hydrolysis. do you know how much you need? less than 2V. To be efficient you would stage it). now you're making me an a$$ for explaining why crap is crap. Can the idea work? yes, I already stated that there are real companies that make and sell HFI systems for commercial diesel trucks and truckers know about cost of gas. as with all add-on's to a system, you can't get good gains unless you tune it. you can get some gains but they are not the best, if it's under a $100 then it's okay, but its over a $1000 it better be professional grade.
I'm just saying you can usually judge these gadgets by the cover; to go into the math and science is being a know-it-all.
>> "I especially like the guy saying this is
>> nothing like water injector (huh, what exactly
>> do you get when you put H's and O's together?)"
> He's right, and you're an idiot if you think
> burning H and O2 to get water is the same as
> injecting water.
when did I say this is "the same" as injecting water? I'm just saying that it is not "nothing like" water injector.
i.e. This is a like (but not the same) as water injector. At minimum, the H20 produced from combustion is in the form of steam. Is this really "nothing like" water injection?
Local Investigative reporters should probably stick to sensationalism like 'catch a predator' spinoffs. Increased fuel efficiency due to better driving habits is one of the reasons for better mileage here. The other is all the of the other things mentioned at the beginning, proper tire pressure, an oil change, new air filter, and although not mentioned probably cleaning the fuel injection system. That would account for a significant portion of efficiency increases. The dynamometer reading can be kicked out because it distorts results. Under road condition testing the real MPG was 16.1 miles which puts us 6.7 MPG above the 9.4 starting point. The device might increase efficiency somewhat but the other factors need to be isolated. I would suspect they make up a significant portion of that MPG increase.
From the website: "the unit actually provides "Brown’s Gas," a combination of hydrogen, oxygen and water vapor that is inhaled by an engine's intake system." yet somehow it provides no water/water vapor to the system? I suspect that it does.
The focus should be on what they do, not on their theory - the falsehood of the phlogiston theory didn't mean that the events ascribed to it didn't occur. If you build and properly install a water or water vapor injector and run two electrodes into it, the odds are that there will be some increase in mileage or power. If you call it a "Brown's Gas Hydroxy Generator" or somesuch, that won't really change things. It certainly won't make it "nothing like" a water or water vapor injector.
"now you're making me an a$$ for explaining why crap is crap."
Sorry, I guess I misunderstood. It wasn't clear to me that you meant it was poorly constructed. So now I hear you saying that these things do in fact work but need to be tuned. That's fine by me. That they appear to work, and very well if the news crew is correct.
"The device might increase efficiency somewhat but the other factors need to be isolated."
So it actually does work then. So those who claimed it can't possibly work because of the second law were just blowing smoke. I thought that's what I said.
YMMV
NEON,
I'm saying they "can" work , but it is different from they "do" work.
"do" sounds like it's 100% guarantee.
"can" is depends
gas/diesel(new/old,US/EURO)
car config (carb/OBD I/OBD II/O2 sensors)
run config (idle/accelerating/coasting) so the gains are highly dependent on many factors.
It may actually decrease your mileage since the modern car is run by wire and can be confused by the changes in timing/temp/02 sensor.
Since this is BoingBoing, one can easily copy one of these with hardware parts, but their configuration cannot be efficient at making brown gas, by throwing 12VDC to it, the wasted energy is going to be towards making warm vapor.
You are arguing a completely different point than I was. I don't understand why that isn't clear.
God How I whis this thing would work! if only!
so sad that people will rip you off to make a buck when everyone is already feeling the pinch at the pump as it is!
Here is the "journalist's" response to our email calling the test flawed and asking him to print a retraction.
------------------------------------------------
"Here's how we did it. We filled up our tank and let the pump shut off automatically. We then put it on the dyno with a starting milage on the odometer of 125,691. We ran it 20 minutes at 55mph and put 21 miles on. We then topped the tank off, and put 2.216 gallons in our tank. Divde 21 by 2.216 and you get 9.4.
We then repeated the test a month later. We filled up, and started the dyno at 126,566. We ran the machine for 20 minutes at 55mph. We put twenty miles on. We then filled up again, and put .862 gallons in our tank. Divide 20 by .862 and you get 23.2mpg.
Now take the difference between the amount of gas that we put into each tank. 2.216 minus .862 equals 1.3.
Take the 1.3 and divide it 2.216, which was the original amount of gas we put into the tank. That equals 61-percent.
We plan on doing a follow-up in the next six weeks, this time with another vehicle. Our initial MPG was ridiculously low, but we didn't think it fair to change vehicles half-way through the test."
Oh dear. That's a terrible way to judge fuel consumption.
It's good that the driver element was apparently eliminated (I assume that they used cruise control); however, apart from the obvious discrepancies in speed and distance (20 minutes at 55mph = 21 miles?!) the main problem is fuelling.
Using that small a quantity of fuel you are at the whim of airlocks in the tank and its filler pipe - it's really difficult to test the fuel consumption of small vehicles over a short distance for this reason.
Also, the temperature (hence volume) of the fuel in the tank probably rose during the course of the two tests - diesel fuel injection systems run unused fuel back into the tank, which is invariably warmer than ambient due to having been pressurised. The ambient temperature in the dyno room could well have risen too, increasing the volume of the fuel in the (almost full) tank. It would take about a 10-degree rise in temperature to cause 150 gallons of fuel to expand by 1.5 gallons - which would entirely account for the difference between the two dyno runs.
As I mentioned, I've been involved in fuel consumption testing for too long to be taken in by this.
Oh, and as for #20, "Noen": I really don't appreciate my question being called "beyond stupid". Yes, I really would expect to see a trail of unburnt fuel coming from every vehicle on the road if 15% or more of the fuel were not burned (about 1 gallon an hour for a heavy-duty truck). Your grasp of the mathematics, physics, chemistry and economics of the issue seems tenuous.
I'm not a "know-it-all". But I am a "know-rather-more-than-you-about-this-subject".
Let's assume a really heavy-duty truck that gets just one mile per gallon; then we would have to distribute 15% of a gallon over the distance of one mile. A jet of liquid exiting a tank at this rate would be narrower than one millimetre.
Stupid would be doing that with cold water and expecting the resulting trail to be obvious on pavement. Expecting to see a trail at all when you do it with vaporised gasoline is beyond stupid, whether you appreciate that or not.
It seems David B. Havanich, Jr. specializes in failed business ventures of many flavors that don't file their annual reports:
http://www.sunbiz.org/corioff.html
Officer/Registered Agent Name List
Officer/RA Name Entity Name Entity Number
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR TRANS ATLANTIC SPECIALIST INC. F04000000118
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR DIVERSIFIED ENERGY GROUP, INC. F06000007351
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR ST. VINCENT DE PAUL CHILDRENS FOUNDATION INC. N06000009568
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR. FREE AUCTION USA, INC. P00000018470
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR. INTERNET HOLDINGS GROUP, INC. P00000020905
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR PRIME TIME MOVING & STORAGE, INC. P00000051515
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR FIRST NATIONAL VENTURE CAPITAL GROUP, INC. P00000051994
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR. BANNER CONSULTANTS, INC. P00000074227
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR NATIONAL GAME CENTER, INC. P02000017458
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR. NEW AGE CONSULTANTS INC. P03000072776
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR BCI PRINTING INC. P03000086768
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR WINNERS CLAIM DIVISION, INC. P06000116406
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR. GREEN MACHINE SOLUTIONS, INC. P08000016941
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR. GALAXY ENTERTAINMENT AND SERVICE, INC. P97000073563
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR. CONSERVATION SERVICES, INC. P98000026182
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR DIVERSIFIED ENERGY GROUP, INC. F06000007351
HAVANICH, DAVID B JR. GALAXY ENTERTAINMENT AND SERVICE, INC. P97000073563
Look, if someone said,
"Hey, we don't need all the light from the headlights, let's put solar cells around the headlights and convert that wasted light into electricity to feed back into the electrical system and take some load off the engine."
Wouldn't your reaction be:
"Are you nuts?"
That's what we are talking about. Transferring energy from one form to another always results in losses. The best solar cells are only 60% efficient and electrolyis is not even that good.
The only way water could be used to add a significant amount of power to an automobile engine was if the hydrogen produced was used in cold fusion (no, that doesn't exist either).
People have been buying into these scams since hearing secondhand reports of the first amphibious cars in the 40s (runs on water, get it?)
The traditional phrasing of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is "there is no such thing as a free lunch". It was true in the 40s, it's true today. It's not because the universe hates you, or the "big guys" are scamming you with a bunch of math they call Physics; it's just the way it is.
When these scams fail, people realize how much a lawsuit would cost and quietly stow the gadgets in the back of the garage. People don't talk abou these failures any more than gamblers talk about how much they lose.
It's also human nature that there always be some who feel it is immoral to let a sucker keep his money. Don't be that sucker. Get a hobby. Have a life. Buy a smaller car. Get a grip and move on.
#30: Sheesh, Nex, way to miss the point!
Yes, of course the individual 'trails' of volatile fuel would be practically invisible - but even a minuscule quantity of diesel fuel is pretty easily detected from the smell.
On a major road, with thousands of vehicles passing every hour, the stink of wasted fuel would be unbearable.
'Beyond stupid' - back to you and Noen, and NO RETURNS. Nah, nah, naah...
#32 - you have it absolutely right.
Roadtransport, I found your comments about measuring fuel consumption insightful, but your incredulity about wasted fuel is right on track to becoming idiotic. Particles of unburnt fuel are a health risk (which is why many new vehicles filter them out, but you can smell all kinds of dirt emitted by the dirtier ones), but they're microscopic even before they evaporate; you can't expect them to just hover over the road. The contaminated air rises due to its relatively high temperature, and even a modicum of wind blows them away. Tunnels stink a bit more, but of course they're ventilated, not least because of the health risk. That aside, you specifically said you'd expect to see trails on the road, when actually there are no such trails, no matter whether the fuel is burned with 80%, 90% or 99% efficiency.
The company i drive for just installed a Hydro 4000 in the cab I drive. Gas prices are really hitting transportation companies hard, so they will try anything to reduce their fuel costs.
of course it is a deductible business expense.
In any case, I set up an update list anyone is welcome to subscribe to. I will send out periodic updates about how this thing is performing, good or bad.
This is not a marketing list; I'm not selling anything to folks who subscribe.
So if you really want to KNOW instead of guessing and speculating, send a blank email to hydroupdate@aweber.com and get on the list.
The car in question is a late model Ford Crown Victoria, with an 8-cylinder engine and dual exhaust(ex-police car). It gets really terrible gas mileage in the city especially. The device was installed 2 days ago. We will be testing it for at least 2 months, and i will send out updates once a week or whenever anything noteworthy happens.
Elliott
I have just one thing to add, check out http://www.ronnmotors.com/