Why is no one talking about the air-car or HHO?

Question

The air-car, $17,000, runs on compressed air, 300 miles to a tank, 60 mph speeds

HHO, been around for years, simple electrification of water- harness the hydrogen gas product and introduce it into the air intake of a gasoline powered vehicle, gain is tiwce the mpg.

Answer 1

Your HHO is bogus: unless you've discovered a new realm of physics, the electrical energy needed to dissociate the water molecule is considerably greater than you can get back when the bonds are re-established in oxidation. That's because the water is inevitably heated in the dissociation process.  The result is that the mileage of cars equipped with such water cells always drops slightly.  The purveyors think otherwise because they don't understand how a generator works.  

The compressed-air car is even more interesting if you do the mathematics.  Let's say that you want a fifty horsepower car that will run for, say, three hours.  Transferring to the metric system, we have 50 hp x 746 w/hp = 37300 watts.  Over five hours, this represents a fuel tank that must hold 37300 watts x  5 hours x 3600 sec/hr = 671.4 megajoules of energy.  

Now, suppose we want to compress enough air into our tanks at one of your hypothetical air stations.  What sort of air compressor would we need to fill up the car in, say, one hour there at the pump?  The air pump would have to transfer energy at a rate of 671.4e6 joules / 3600 seconds =186500 watts, or 186500 watts / 746 w/hp = 250 horsepower.  And that's for an hour of sitting there.  If you want to be out of there in ten minutes, you must increase the power of your air pump by a factor of six, which would make for a 1500 horsepower pump.  I don't know how many of these would be necessary to run a successful air-compressor station because I've never heard of a 1500 horsepower air compressor; they're all a lot smaller than that.  

These are fairly straightforward physics problems that seem well beyond the abilities of people who publicize alternative-fueled vehicles.  No wonder it's so easy to fool people.

Answer 2

http://www.businessweek.com/autos/conten...

runs on compressed air.

Answer 3

The air car is a myth.  Hydrogen powered cars aren't a myth, but they might as well be; hydrogen is expensive to make, difficult to transport and store, difficult to deliver, and it takes a lot of it to have a significant energy content.  A standard welding tank of hydrogen has about as much energy as half a gallon of gasoline.

Answer 4

Both the air-car and the HHO systems lose credibility when examined with a scientific eye.

Those promoting various HHO schemes are usually in it to sell books or kits (either directly or as an affiliate) so naturally they *claim* that the system works.  When you examine the claims closely however, they fall apart because they appear to defy the laws of thermodynamics.

As for the air-car... well the inventor has been promising to deliver a commercial product for over a decade and has still failed to do so.  The emphasis is again on separating people with little understanding of the physics involved from their hard-earned cash.  MDI has been selling "licenses" to various companies for a very handsome sum of money - but still no commercial product exists.

I have written a number of articles on these subjects and the issue of just why people believe in and/or get fooled by such scams.  They are in the URLs listed below and I suggest those interested in the facts take a moment to read them.

Answer 5

HHO has been beat to death here, and still it comes back like a bad dream. Basically it's a con. Yes I can prove it, and yes I have a long post to show you why it can't work, I'll post it again if you wish or send me an e-mail and I'll just send it to you.

The air car isn't even out in pubic yet, once they are on the road then we'll have something to talk about, until then It holds promise. At least there are some working prototypes. But again we've covered the air car, and until they are out and about there's not a whole lot to talk about.

Answer 6

If by "no-one" you mean the media, .. they are.

Recent Fox news story testing HHO on one of their own news Trucks: http://www.wptv.com/content/specialrepor...

2 year old Fox news story on D.Klein's HHO: http://youtube.com/watch?v=KUJ-mfO-BPQ

An older NBC news piece on the same: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pa1meqFFjjM

A news story about a New Zealander who has his motorcylce converted and running ONLY on HHO (not Hydrogen.. but Hydrogen on Demand - meaning that there is no before-use storage of the gas): http://youtube.com/watch?v=FW_LQqJk740

Answer 7

I am not brave enough to drive the air car in North America along side SUVs.  

Hydrogen can make metal brittle.  Anyone who installs an HHO generator on their car is asking for a catostrophic failure.  I am waiting for a manufacturor to come out with a car that has one factory installed.

Answer 8

I am!  I just posted a similar question about water to hydrogen

cars, and answered one about air-power.  Contrary to what the others say.  India and France are producing a air-powered car which I have heard will run at over 100mph and go for about 125miles before a compressor recharge.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/02/08/...

I am for anything that will beat this high gas prices including drilling for oil in the US both onshore and offshore and the Ar tic which they are talking about.  Also Kansas was set to build a 10,000,000 Billion dollar refinery but was stopped by the politicians.  High diesel prices are driving the price of all goods up.  Speak up about it, lets get the prices down.

Answer 9

Actually, I just downloaded the plans from the Internet to build a viable HHO system to fit on my car. It seems the only people saying it won't work are the ones who haven't tried it. Check it out by doing a search for Water-Hybrid Cars.

Answer 10

thats cool man  HHO

Answer 11

I find it amazing that the big car companies FORD, GM ect..are spiraling down with the big trucks and not one has an HHO alternative. I think this shows beyond and doubt it is a bunch of c**p. I also notice a pro HHO answer on this question submits a boiler plate with the same paragraph to others asking about HHO.  WHeres an independant study? And no it's not the Oil companies supressing HHO, the big ruck companies would break a leg for it if it was truly woking.