Have you ever heard of a HHO hybrid car?

Question

i just found about it the other day and have been looking into trying to convert one of my cars. is it as good as they say?

Answer 1

Yes, and it does not work. The idea is based on the electrolysis of water--you use the car's electrical system to separate the hydrogen and oxygen molecules from water and burn the gases as a fuel, much like a hydrogen car. But think about this, you put water into your car to convert to hydrogen and oxygen gas. You burn the gases and they recombine to form water, except now it's really hot--so in short, you put liquid water in and get steam out--you're wasting gasoline to heat steam and somehow powering the car. This completely violates the first and second law of thermodynamics.

Hydrogen cars only work on the basis that you ALREADY HAVE the hydrogen.

You can also run the numbers on this too: it takes about 50 kilowatt-hours to make 1 kg of hydrogen and oxygen gas from water. You can get AT MOST 39 kilowatt-hours of heat from burning 1 kg of hydrogen and oxygen gas. Then take into consideration that your car is somewhere between 15-24% energy efficient, the net effect is a lot of wasted energy.

It is absolutely a scam, not to mention inherently dangerous.

Answer 2

i don't know, never heard of it....buy a bicycle....it's worth it in so many ways.....worth it more so than any type of "environmentally friendly" type car

Answer 3

I know a guy who has one of those in his car and he says it gives him much better mileage from his fuel.  There is no way that you can run the car only on water for the reasons 2n2222 has pointed out.

But it seems that the alternator does produce an excess of electricity above that required to charge the battery and power the electrical systems.  I don't know how much more, I am not a mechanic, but given that this guy's car does NOT regularly experience flat battery problems seems to back me up here.

I'd be interested to know how the Hydrogen in the fuel affects the valves in the engine.  If the heat is too great in the engine the valves can be damaged which gives a huge repair bill, and Hydrogen burns very hot.

I also wonder about the effect of the Hydrogen on the timing of the combustion of the fuel (the RON or MON number); if it throws out the timing, you may actually produce worse emissions due to unburnt hydrocarbons being released through the exhaust.

Roger.

Answer 4

Logic tells me it is pure Bull. There are thousands of researchers all over the world spending hundreds of Billions on H2 fuel research, and haven't yet produced an affordable, safe, reliable method yet.

Answer 5

Ah.  The little jar of water with the stainless steel bolts that's connected to the battery?  Amazing that nobody's thought of doing that in the hundred years that cars have been manufactured.  

Actually, it shows up about every thirty years or so, and it still doesn't work.  The thing will indeed create hydrogen and oxygen gas, and these will burn in your engine.  But the energy you need to dissociate the water is greater than what you get from burning the hydrogen.  That's because the electric current tends to heat the water, too.  

The only reason that people think these things work is that they don't understand electricity.  They'll tell you that the alternator creates excess voltage that it never uses, and that this is somehow equivalent to free energy, which it is not.  The energy to dissociate the water comes right from your gasoline-powered engine by way of the alternator belt.

Answer 6

What is HHO suposed to mean?  If it is Hydrogen Hydroxide then it is a scam.

Hydrogen Hydroxide = DiHydrogen Monoxide = Water

Answer 7

It is all lies.  I promise you.

Answer 8

I'd be pretty wary of the claims for these products...every time there's a fuel shortage or spike in prices, these gizmo's come out of the woodwork to sucker people into buying them in the hopes of geting better mileage. Most are scams that rely on a tiny bit of truth and are blown way out of proportion to what can actually be accomplished. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen from water than what you'll get back out so as a hybrid or add-on process, it may not work but not very well. As a stand-alone, it would not work at all.

If these products were so easy at increasing mileage, I'm sure the car companies would have installed them to save hundreds of millions of dollars in R and D efforts to eek out a couple tenth's of increase in mpg through conventional methods.

Answer 9

http://www.brownsgas.com/brownsgasfuelsa...

i can see how the dissociated hydrogen might improve efficiency of combustion, and how it might be produced using 'spare' electricity from the alternator that would otherwise be lost as heat. i am on my way to being convinced.....

Answer 10

Yes but unfortunatley I have never seen one.

At least one that wasn't up on youtube by some guy who wouldn't show anyone how it works,   Why might you ask because like the oil companies hes just trying to make a quick buck and isn't worried about whether what hes selling works or not or wether you wreck your engine trying it.

Any increased load on your alternator is an increaed load on you engine.

Thats why they don't run a city sized powerplant off of a brigs and straton engine.

But its so big  

You can turn a 500 kw powerplant over by hand but try it if it even has a 5 kw EMF of load on it

Answer 11

If a Philipino gentleman ran his car on water for three years so can we.  Everything is possible so go for it.  It's all over the internet so it might be possible.

France is coming out with a car that runs on compressed air this year.

"BBC News is reporting that a French company has developed a pollution-free car which runs on compressed air. India's Tata Motors has the car under production and it may be on sale in Europe and India by the end of the year.

The air car, also known as the Mini-CAT or City Cat, can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go 200 km on a 1.5 euro fill-up -- roughly 125 miles for $3. The top speed will be almost 70 mph and the cost of the vehicle as low as $7000.

The car features a fibreglass body and a revolutionary electrical system and is completely computer-controlled. It is powered by the expansion of compressed air, using no combustion at all, and the exhaust is entirely clean and cool enough for use in the internal air conditioning system. "