If those water-fueled cars worked so well, why aren't they on the market for us to buy?

Question

i would buy one in a heart beat if they were legal and i could find one.

Answer 1

Because the government makes too much money from oil sales. Plain and simple.

Answer 2

There is no such thing as a water fueled car.  In case you didn't hear me the first time, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A WATER POWERED CAR.  Please everyone, stop acting this silly question.

Answer 3

what do u mean they rnt legal???

r they really not legal???

thats insane!

Answer 4

because they don't work so well or at all for that matter. there's some small toys that weigh about 4-5 pounds that work but you can't produce that much hydrogen from water incidentally it has a 9 volt battery to separate the h20 molecule to then reform it in a tiny fuel cell.

more just an experiment with an h2 cell

Answer 5

GM and Ford won't let you.

Answer 6

People just aren't thinking when they say car engines should be able to use water. Car engines BURN gasoline, they don't just "use" it. You can no more run a car engine on water than you can burn water in your stove or space heater or fireplace. The fuel is burning with actual hot fire inside the engine. Just because gasoline is a liquid and goes in a car and mysteriously makes the car go with no flames visible outside the engine is NO reason to believe than any liquid can do the same. People seem to have the idea that if the people who actually know how cars work would just listen to those of us who don't, then they should be able to make a car engine use any liquid at all. After all, that is all we know, that some liquid goes in the tank and the car goes. No thinking needed.

Answer 7

I am unaware of any cars fueled by water.

There are cars which are fueled with hydrogen, which work by combusting it with the oxygen in the atmosphere which CREATES water.  That is, the act of creating water releases energy which can be used to move the car.

Such cars do now exist, but we don't have the infrastructure in place in the US to support them.  Where would you get a tank full of hydrogen?

They are beginning to become common place in Iceland where they actually do have much of the infrastructure in place to generate, move and store hydrogen.  The governor of California has proposed that similar programs be put in place there, though California would have a much harder time generating the hydrogen without the termal springs of Iceland.

BMW has a car in production, with many prototypes out around the world that burns hydrogen.  GM isn't as far along though they have shown a few "concept" cars that can burn hydrogen.

Iceland plans to be able to completely forsake fossil fuesl by 2050.  They look like they may succeed!

Answer 8

the water power car is fueled by hydrogen. hydrogen is stupid to use since it takes 4 times a much energy to make hydrogen as the energy that came from the engine since electrolysis uses so much energy

Answer 9

I don't think there's a way to make them affordable yet. Even if you were to mass-produce them, the unit cost would be like $50,000 - 75,000.

And you can't mass-produce them anyway, because there's no fueling infrastructure. Water, by the way, is NOT a fuel, it's a waste-product. The fuel is hydrogen, and it needs a source, such as ethanol, butanol, gasoline, diesel, bio-diesel, etc.

Answer 10

Outside of the automotive and oily industry conspiracies the water fueled I've read about don't use water but rather convert water into oxygen and hydrogen.  The hydrogen is then used as the fuel.  When the hydrogen fuel is burned it produces water vapor.  VERY VERY CLEAN.  

However creating hydrogen is actually not very efficient and requires another power source.  Most hydrogen is created from natural gas.  So the dependence on fossil fuels is still there just a bit abstracted from the end user.

Cars that claim this are usually shown to be charades and just a scam to get money out of 'green' thinking people.

Once there is a way to cheaply extract hydrogen from water they may grow in popularity but right now that seems beyond the abilities of science.

Answer 11

I don't know about water-fueled cars, but there are hydrogen powered cars (that release its exhaust as water vapor) and organic fuel run cars. Maybe electric and solar run at the most. Haven't heard of it, but the component of water has nothing in it that can be used as energy or fuel. You need it to live, but it contains no calories either. If you can turn water in fuel other than creating electricity, than I'll be goddamned.

The reasons why they aren't on the market is because there would need to be an entire overhaul of the transportation system. There are very few, but if they were to be widely manufactured you would need a whole new line and trade of maintenance and maintenance/repair equipments or parts. And you would need to put in new fuel refinerines, refueling and service stations throughout the whole country if pollution-free vehicles were to be en masse production. Car manufacterers and its resources would have to scrap everything to meet the new trend. All of that costs money(both profit, technology development, and production cost), replacement, and time, which no one-people, government, or industry wants to invest. Other industries and businesses would be against it because it could eventually put them out of business. The government claims such needs and setbacks, including emission control, would hurt the economy.

If for say, there are cars that run on water, it would severely strain water resources. They're already jittery about resources of drinking water and conserving water with population size, disappearing snow, droughts from global warming and all. But there's an excess of water if the ice caps were to melt, which I suppose would be an abundance that can be put to use one way or another-but you'd have to process it. Also costs money.

Secondly, gasoline is a huge source of tax for the government. The price you pay for gas, little of the total cost is actually for the gas. The government likes gasoline, pays billions for gas imports, and goes to war for gas, but it won't last forever. We don't need to run dry and have everything go to h**l and crumble before starting to panic.

Third. The majority of people like their polluting cars because they like the feel, like the style, like the convenience, like the speed, like the engine revving up. I think people see those emission free vehicles as not as reliable or at least not very good looking (what's with those weird designs anyway). Just look at  people who find whatever reason to hate the Toyota Prius because they claim it's "too quietly run" and "not very fast". What's wrong with being quiet, gives everyone some peace. And Al Gore's son broke the velocity record for the Prius when he was stoned and speeding. The Prius might not be the most good looking car ever, but it adds up if you calculate how much in gas money you save over the years. Well worth the sticker price upon buying one. But it's hard to drag people away from what they've been so used to.

Personally, I'm for those hybrid cars. I'm sick and tired that I can't even walk down the street and breathe without some gas guzzler car stinking up the whole place. And some people get huge SUVs and trucks when they pretty much go only a short distance and they don't live in rugged areas. But due to financial restraints, I have to drive a normal car.

I have no idea if it's true, because I've never seen how a hydrogen car works, but I've heard someone say something like a hydrogen engine wouldn't be safe and can explode if you got into a crash or something. Hydrogen is a combustible gas though...

Answer 12

by water fueled I am assuming you mean hydrogen cars.  the reason is that they just aren't available yet.  GM plans to have them on the road by 2010 but that can change.  currently they cost $500000 apiece or so but that's just supply and demand.

btw these things (hydrogen cars) do exist, they do not take up the space of an suv (on the contrary, the entire power train is contained within the chasis, and is considerably smaller than current cars) and hydrogen is readily available extracted from oil (this does not make greenhouse gasses) or from electrolysis using windmills or solar panels.

Answer 13

They are hydrogen cars water minus the oxygen. They produce no waste but water.

A few set backs not enough hydrogen filling stations, it would take billions to set up enough stations to start actually selling the massed produced version of this car. ITs not all that easy seperating hyrdogen and air. I mean it can be done at a cost, hence the hyrdogen refueling stations.

But by all is said and done a lot fewer emissions and the hydrogen would cost less but not as much as you think ... probably be about a buck seventy five a gallon.

They say they are safe but hydrogen can be highly flamible hence hydrogen rockets.

So in all actuality a lot more trouble then you think and you would have to have a lot of backers and do you really think these car companies want this . Most of them have deals with oil companies or own oil companies or oil companies own them.  

The combustion engine is very old tech. Actually electric cars are a lot better and cheaper. But the only real reason full electric cars were made was because california had a law saying that the car companies must offer other energy compatible vehicles in their state and they did for a while , but they were doomed for failure, gm used batteries that werent that good and got about 70 miles to a charge when for about the same price their were batteries that got about 250 to a charge.

Watch a little show called (who killed the electric car)

An electric car is almost no maintence , a quarter of the fuel costs and lasts a long time. HMMMM i wonder why they dont want to sell them.

And please by all means forget this bio fuel c**p.... The only thing it will do is drive the corn , soybean market though the roof and the bio fuel isnt all that much cheaper.

Just think what is made out of corn.

Answer 14

The oil companies and the government are making to much money and wont allow car manufacturers to make those cars. Watch the doc "who killed the electric car"

just look at imperial oil's financial records last year they made several trillion dollars world wide that more than most countries.

Answer 15

Same reason people don't ride unicorns:  they don't exist.

The urban legend of the 'car that runs on water' probably started with someone radically mis-understanding the idea of either hydrogen as fuel for IC engines (they /produce/ water as exhaust), or nuclear fusion as a theoretical power source (fusion, though still no where near being practical would  use dueterium or tritsium as fuel, and those isotopes of hydrogen can be extracted from seawater).

The hydrogen-fueled vehicle (IC or fuel cell) is getting some boosting these days, but is really quite impractical.  The only reason it gets so much attention is that it would follow the same fueling-station paradigm as gasoline vehicles, something that apeals to companies used to that business model.  Battery-powered EVs are closer to practicality, starting with 'plug-in hybrids.'

Answer 16

well who owns the water that's going to power it?  don't think for a second that the moment those cars are mass produced, that every nation on the planet isn't going to lay claim to all the earth's water somehow.  profit profit profit!

Answer 17

ummmm, two words - BIG OIL.  The oil companies are the ones that don't want to see those cars on the road.  Think of all the money they will be losing once the hydrogen engine hits the market.  Oh - you need to fill up your tank, hook up your hose to the outside faucet and lets filler up!  Who loses?  Big Oil - so, they will do what ever they can to keep us dependent on gasoline for as long as possible.

Answer 18

becuase the goverment sucks if you build your own car that produces no pollution what so ever they will come after you to pay up for taxes even though your not even using gas they suck its all about the money thats why if we use other resorces for energy then the oil industry will no longer exist and im pretty sure they will be pretty pist i mean there will always be those that rather use gas but most people will turn to something else i mean i know of one car that is green friendly and puts out 1000 hp they transformed everything on that car but its on a mustang chasis

Answer 19

No car is fueled by water.

You could be mistaken by hydrogen cars. Hydrogen can be made by running electricity through water and an electrolyte (salt, etc.) Doing that creates hydrogen and oxygen.

Cars could run off of that, but no car can run off of water.

P.S. Don't get the idea that you could make hydrogen on-board your car using water and your car's battery. It wouldn't make nearly enough hydrogen to make your car even start. Much less run continuously.

Answer 20

They are(were) not technically fueled by water, they were fueled by Hydrogen. The problem was the electrolysis system needed to separate the Hydrogen from the Oxygen in the water. They needed a large SUV size vehicle to accommodate the system ( the actual working test/prototype vehicles were delivery vans {UPS/FedEx} and motor homes).

  In the late 70's they were in final testing and allegedly going to have a smaller working system available for the general public to buy within 3-5 years . Then the Hindenburg hysteria set in when the govt heard "Hydrogen" and somebody ( we can all guess at who would buy up the patents for a vehicle that ran on water ,burned clean,and the only emission was water) bought up the patents to the system.

Nobody has seen nor heard anything more about the "water powered" cars in 30 years.

For those saying that they were only urban legend, look back and find the documentaries and actual films of the testing that were done back in the late 70's

Answer 21

The Last I knew and it was a few years ago, It took a couple million dollars to manufactura one and they're not stable enough right now to be put on the market.