HHO. how is this supposed to give better gas milage if he SAME amount of gas is still being used?

Question

as in, you need to be able to turn off the gas that is being consumed in order to use less gas, no?

is this a scam?

Answer 1

Every time there's a gas scare, they dust off all the old scams, and run them thru again. Never fails.

Answer 2

this isn't supposed to work via the perpetual motion principle. Gas to elec to hho is 25% to 30% efficient at best (though, at idle, the car throws out roughly the same amount of energy whether the alternator is on or not).

The theory, proponents claim, is that adding some hho gas into the fuel air mix will increase the percentage of fuel burnt. Depending on your car, perhaps between 10% to 3% of the fuel goes unburnt, to the tailpipe, where it is cleaned up by the catalytic converter.

It is known that adding HHO, or even natural gas, enhances combustion and enables a car to run considerably leaner (less gas per air in the combustion mix). The real question though is whether the tiny amounts of gas sold by these HHO garage businesses, would actually be large enough to affect the combustion. I would say for large cars, > 2.5 litre engines, no.

Answer 3

It could be that the engine runs more efficiently -- so the example I can best think of involves one engine A vs. another engine B.  Same identical engines, but B is modified to run better (cleaner, and/or using all of the gas in the combustion process, rather than wasting 10-20% of it and having it escape out the exhaust).  Then, for the same amount of gas, engine B would push the car further down the road. i.e. better gas mileage!

Answer 4

I believe they are gasses that are cheaper to produce cost wise per unit, but overall in terms of efficiency they are more expensive,

Answer 5

Yes, it's a scam...they always think that we consumers are real dumdums...but we catch 'em in the act.  What gets me is they think nobody will ever even notice.

Answer 6

Of course it's a scam.  What they are suggesting is that you should run your engine, to generate electricity, to turn water into hydrogen, to run your engine, which will turn hydrogen into water.

This is going to cost energy, not create it.  None of the steps are 100% efficient. If they were, it would merely be a waste of time and effort.  But they're not.

Answer 7

If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Answer 8

The problem with that is that it takes more energy to produce than the energy it ceates.