Water-fuel car unveiled in Japan

remember it can only go about 50 miles or 60 miles if going about 80mph. living in arizona, I know that if you wanted to go to a major city where you didn't live close by, you'd have a problem. however the fact that you can refuel with almost any water is good for that too.

what does it make the water into, hydrogen? correct me if im wrong but isnt hydrogen highly flammable or is my chemical knowledge flawed? and then wouldnt that just make the whole atmosphere on earth incredibly unstable?

It would be interesting to see if these become widely distributed and manufactured, and, if so, how well the public would react and how much they'd be willing to pay for something that's completely different than what they're used to, especially with the current fresh water crisis in the South.

Whoopsthereitis... $10.00 for a bottle of water... here we go!

this is the fucking dumbest thing i've heard in quite a while. i sincerely hope that this idea does not catch on, there are already billions of people that don't have access to clean drinking water & i can't even begin to imagine the terribly profound impact that this would have on all of us.

if the minimal use of biofuels has made food prices skyrocket in the past couple years the specter of water powered engines will definitely cause hella global conflicts.

Look for a movie called "the story of hydrogen" coming soon to a desktop near you.

I had the thrill to actually touch the BMW 7 hydrogen powered vehicle at the clean air and energy conference in Asheville North Carolina today.
What a cool car. There are 22 in the US but passing one on the street is still a long way off.

This is truly a great time to be a mechanic.

Thats the problem, there's no clean water left to prove it could work.

How come every country expect the United Staes has a great idea to get us off oil except us?Japan has a car that runs on water,Brazil has ethanol,our response is "lets drill more".You gotta be sh*ttin me.

The big 3.
If oil company A owns car company B and car company B has a yearly loss of X million dollars but oil company A has a gain of Y billion dollars car company B must create demand for oil company A.

If I can figure this out on a high school diploma I bet a multi-million dollar salary CEO can too.

Um, they better use sea water coz our planet's clean water supply is pretty low too. Other than that, it's fab!

WELL!! This is a big step toward the right concept of keeping it green. I still would like to know more specs about the car. But, yea, I can dig it!

If it will run on sweat, I'm set!

A lot of people are freaking out about the fact that the government wont let this fly, but if people would realize that if they just raise taxes to pay for roads and such instead of taxing gas, we would have fuel zero emissions vehicles and pretty roads to drive them on.

Hydrogen is the key to sustainable energy.

Educate yourself.

S. Pellegrino spritzer is better.

i bet america is going to a problem with that shit. god bless america.

I have no idea why this kind of technology does not happen at the years in 2000. With an anode and cathode with high voltage, water separates into both hydrogen and oxygen. You would think at the microprocessor level of current technology, someone would get the efficiency curve that a small lawnmower engine could produce the charge to split the water into these two items and siphon the hydrogen into a tank and release pure oxygen into the air. This is simple physics - why things of no significance at high detail and something significant with no attention? When people mention the power side involved, what about passive plants working on the sun and wind near a large water supply producing this at nothing but distillate speeds to be tanked as the clock turns the wind day and night and the sun make electricity in the day in remote regions in the middle west that could easily access the rest of the country on the transportation routes closest to the center. Hello... the lights are on, is anyone home? Making free money costs how much?

For a true story on how an engineer in New Jersey is making hydrogen in his back yard see http://www.ieee.org/portal/site/ieeetv/menuitem.6ce799f946c20d660374ca695bac26c8.../ieee_tv&file=SPC_HydHouse.xml&vid=93088&play=true

ooooh the timesss they are a channgiiiinnn!!!
ugh!!!
why has this taken so long!?!?

For all of you guys who think that big corporations will crush this important invention: just join together and form your own corporation to make and sell these cars- license the technology and make it your own. If the concept is good, you can't lose.

For my part, I stick with the laws of thermodynamics: splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen takes more energy than you get back by burning hydrogen and oxygen. Which leads to the obvious question where do you get that energy in the first place -- by magic?

I disagree that fresh water is our only water crisis. The minute we begin using saltwater for cars, we'll launch a saltwater crisis. The oceans are already heading for the crisis point, due to all the pollutants, overfishing, arctic warming, etc.

I'm leery of this one. Renewable, solar power still seems like the best way to go.

Don't count on it. We are controlled by our elected officials and the are beholden to their corporate masters. Big brother,big oil. perfect together.

Perfect! Now if they can only make it look good.

groovy, i can dig it, wish that was available now, if you catch my drift. Seeing that the gas prices are so darn high today, it's unbelievable! Water into energy, what a conept. But that was always a concept though, because electricity is powered by water.

This is great! I guess all the us automakers that say hydrogen cars are still in testing and are 10 -20 years away will not like this.

ThereisHope and Bigcitykid are right. This technology seems speculative at most. Especially when the Genpax dude says 'no external input other than water required'... To work, hydrogen must be extracted by electrolysis from the water but that takes more energy than the hydrogen would produce for the motor. In which case a power cord would have to hook up to the car! Might as well charge up good Lithium-ion batteries straight off and run on those! Battery-Electric require the least energy conversion stages and thus the least power loss incurs. As long as we are wise with our batteries energy from the sun, wind etc can be directly utilized!

Thanks for the posting Merasyad! Great News! You got my green vote! We just hope and pray some humans doesn't make water to become the next "pricy" gas!

I'm skeptical until they explain the process by which the hydrogen is released from the water (thereby creating the hydrogen fuel to power the fuel cell mentioned in the press release).

All known methods known to do this use more power than they provide in the form of hydrogen.

wow this seems to be what we have been waiting for. Hopefully a company will wake up and see its potential and bring this to the public ASAP. Just hope the government doesn't butt in and play dirty games to stop this from reaching the American people.

So, if the car uses the hydrogen, then the car must expel the left over oxygen (after all water is two part hydrogen to one part oxygen). So if the car truly seperates the two elements, that would actually use more energy than it would create. I'm interested as to how the motor actually works, any ideas?

Using food sources as fuel will cause food shortages and as we know the temptation to sell to the highest bidder as the poor starve. Plus, what happens to the H20? I assume it is chemically separated, then how does it get chemically re-integrated?

The 1970s saw a whole raft of patents regarding the seperation of hydrogen from water with many demonstrations at various science fairs. The early internet was full of conspiracy chatter & speculation that the oil companies and manufacturers where trying to supress and debunk the technology, maybe some were. Through the decades a few John Le Carre style plots have surfaced surrounding the technology including the untimely and suspicous demise of a main thinker and driving force behind the idea,Stan Meyer. But Stan stood accused of stealing the idea from Josef Hasslberg and so the twisted web behind this technology grew.

Out of all those original patents filed by people who spent their entire being trying to bring this technology to light I wonder if any of them are receiving royalties from the companies that are now manufacturing the technology ?

Ha, I run on water too... Weird.

We need to find a substitute for fossil fuels and water is a scarce resource already. Maybe it can work for some individuals, i guess rain water is free for now

This is the wave of the future. Either jump on the bandwagon or get left behind in the steam-filled dust.

When the big flood comes, we'll have more water than we know what to do with...raining down on us...

what would be really cool is a submarine or even boats that run on water...now there's an idea for you...talk about fuel supply...

A man here stateside (the US) that is, converted his car to run on water.

http://www.local6.com/news/16488151/detail.html

I remember seeing this on TV one night.

what's not to get excited about? bout' time we move forward. i just put a homemade hydrogen fuel cell in my tacoma, better gas mileage means more money in my pocket and less in the middle east. woo hoo!

The only water that is in short supply is drinking water. More methods of Desalinization is going necessary whether this is used or not.

Since this car can run on seawater that covers 70% of the Earth that's not in short supply.

Hopefully after 40 years people will be more ready to make the switch to other tech than they were during the last Gas Crisis.

Water or saltwater. Awesome. Simply simple.

Oil companies will squash it.

They are ugly, though. Ugly little cars. Can't they have a better design? It can't be because of aerodynamics because it's not very sleek for that.

An Ostrich isn't very pretty but it runs fast. Oh well. ha.

Has anyone seen the documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" If not I suggest you do, for this video contains an abundance of information on why new technologies go unnoticed.

Otherwise, a water-fueled car just maybe the answer to our prayers. Even though a sufficient method of H20 consumption must be created, alternative energy sources are the way of the future.

not to rain on this parade, but doesnt somebody think there is gonna be an obstacle present cause once there is a car that runs fully on H2O, how will the manufactures or even the government be making a profit? You buy the car, pay the insurance but there is something that has to give, this world is filled with evil greedy corprations they arent gonna let us go that easy.

Hydrogen fuel or BUST!!!

Its great to see this stuff hitting main stream. Its probably gonna cost an arm and a leg at first, but the more we advance this technology, the faster we can move to energy sources that are more eco-friendly.

i'm sure this could potentially be a good idea but why not just electric cars? the technologies been around for over a hundred years and it could be powered on electricity from wind, solar or hydro etc. any sustainable energy sources to make it more eco friendly. there is already a shortage of clean drinking water in many countries and with growing world population that problem is sure to get worse. it seems like a slap in the face to me of those who go thirsty every night.

Future wars will be about water. It is dangerous to depend on life sustaining water for fuel. Humans will always lose.

I'm not sure if I want to use water for my car. Not because I don't know how reliable a fuel source it is, but rather I'm afraid of water shortly ending up in the same predicament as oil, that is, having too little of it. Maybe not in the time that I am here, but I wonder how it will affect everyone else after my time. It all depends on how many gallons of water are used per some period of time for our cars, but we already know that it's alot. It also depends on how renewable a source is water. Sorry, I'm not really sure how one replenishes water as a resource, which is not to say that it cannot be replenished, but I don't have the knowledge pertaining to how that is done. In any case, I wonder what the estimated time of complete depletion for water is. Obviously, at a much faster rate than if we didn't use it for our cars. I have no statistical basis for my worry, but I think it is still a reasonable cause for concern. Does anyone know of any studies relating to my worry? If not, then no problem.

This is great since this 20 year old technology is finally hitting mainstream news. Well, reuters ain't bad.

I love how this isn't a fuel/water hybrid like many of the kits out there.

@ Kdrew. I hear you man. Rainwater. And at 50mpl, jeez that's impressive.

The US car manufacturers better get going on this, or it's going to be the 1980s all over again, and the Japanese will be creating yet another market over here in the U.S., hurting the many that work for Ford, GM, & Chrysler.

Meanwhile the U.S. is promoting flex-fuel vehicles.

Nuts.

This is a great idea. The video says 1 quart per 80 kilometers...thats a lot of miles per gallon.

Well, there goes the big three. They'll either have to get on the bus or be left standing in the rain...

I agree also, there has already been and will continue to be much resistance to this, via the good 'ole fat cat oil boys...

I dunno, Ive been looking at videos of electric cars and such since I was a kid and still we are running on gas.

As I type this, it is pouring outside. I'm staring at the potential for my ride around town. Not sure how this will go on the highway, but who cares.

My rain barrel runneth over and I want me a water car.

Great post. I agree with yoni.

Being a bit if a cynic, I ever had issues with hybrids, and what they could really do vs. what they did. This I can get behind completely.

It's about time.

it uses any type of water and water is one of the most abundant resources on earth . clean safe water on the other hand is the problem. that is scarce and thats what is being traded like oil. so since you can use any type of water this shouldn't break bank or affect the global community negatively.

This isn't even the first water-powered car to be out in the news; there was another one made by this guy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMovXzVOzc4

I'd be interested to find out what the miles per gallon are for this vehicle, but given that it's just using water, there are no pollutants, no need for drilling, transport or even special vending stations for the water, you can just top off on tap!
I want one now!

I want one, and California is so perfect for this car! We are right next to the ocean and Japan! Yay Japan!

You won't be seeing these in California.

If this can be adapted to run on saltwater, it's brilliant. Otherwise we're going to be competing with our cars for food again as the fresh water crisis escalates.

finally a decent video to show everyone that claims h2o cars are fairy tales.

Japan is, and always will be a few decades ahead of us when it comes to technology.

This is a grand idea that has a lot of potential but it will not materialize anytime soon states side. one because its foreign technology and second it will severely damage the auto and oil industries in the us so expect a lot of resistance.

The technology has been around for well over a decade. Glad to see it finally being used. But isn't there a water crisis in several places inthe world. Take Florida for example. We have a ton of water restrictions in effect. I honestly don't think we have enough water for everyone tobe consuming in their auto. You still can use saltwater, which we have a ton of. It also releases more BTUs as well. Or maybe the Frechn autos that run on air. $3 L.A. to N.Y. anyone?