Using Water as Fuel – Environmentally Sound?

I’ve been running across a lot of articles and ads lately about being able to “hybridize” and fuel a regular car, truck, SUV with water, talking about how cheap it is to convert a car to use both gas and water – especially compared to the current prices on gasoline – but the one thing that I notice they don’t mention is that “fresh” water is in just about as short supply as oil is expected to become.

While the emissions of a car hybridized to run on ‘water’ and gas are supposed to be up to 40% lower than a gas-only vehicle, there still are emissions and they aren’t “pure water” (like hydrogen-only vehicles leave behind.) That means that even though you’d be getting up to twice the “gas mileage” using the changes to your existing vehicle, you’d also be using up valuable drinking water to do it. And with the world seeming to be heading towards drought conditions in many, many areas, water may become even more valuable than oil. (After all, you can’t drink oil very well, eh?)

It seems to me that while converting a vehicle to run on water seems like a great idea for people with even a little working knowledge of mechanics (it’s only an add-on, not a totally overhaul), I don’t think I’d want it to become widespread until we find a better, more cost effective way to convert sea water into fresh water so we can have our fuel-water and drink it, too. Although, at that point, totally hydrogen “clean” vehicles may finally become more available and convenient or some other form of electric car made workable, making this upgrade technology completely obsolete.

Technorati Tags: Cars, Enviro, Fuel, Hybrid

New Hybrid Cars: 150MPG SUV Hybrid

AFS Trinity Power Corporation, an innovator in the creation of new hybrid cars among other things, has designed the XH150, an SUV hybrid that gets up to 150mpg in test runs. Wow!

I don’t know about you, but my little Subaru Forester only gets 20-25mpg when it’s in a good mood, less when it’s not (which is more times than I care to think about.) With gas running about $3.05 for the low grade where I am (and likely to go up, not down), that would be like gas selling for around $.50/gallon. Who wouldn’t love that?

Supposedly one drawback in being able to get that kind of mileage is having to plug the car in at night in order to keep the batteries topped up – the car can go up to 40 miles without using the gas engine, perfect for short hops to the grocery, etc. (Other hybrids use the gas engine to keep the batteries charged while driving, but you’re creating the electricity at car gasoline prices – this vehicle uses household electricity, which is a LOT cheaper!) After 40 miles, it uses the combined electric/gas technologies to keep the car going – so unlike a totally electric car, you wouldn’t suddenly be out of juice somewhere and have to wait for a charge up (if there’s a charge-up station around you can use!) With the XH150, you would just automatically be switched to using the part of the engine powered by the not-as-cheap-to-use gas, available everywhere.

I don’t know about you, but I have to plug in my cell phone just about every night, so why would plugging my car in be such a problem? Especially since this new one uses a regular household plug, unlike previous electric car incarnations. (Pull into garage, get out, plug in, go in house. TaDA!) And unlike my cell phone, if I forget to plug it in, the car has the alternate means of running on the gas in the tank if the batteries aren’t full!

Check out the data from their latest press release:

• more than 150 miles per gallon of gasoline based on the EPA Combined Urban/Highway Driving Cycle with 6 days per week of 40 miles per day in all electric mode and one day at 100 miles with assistance of the gas engine. Different driving patterns will produce different results
• 40 mile all-electric range on a single, overnight charge.
• Extended range of 400 miles with hybrid operation.
• Rapid acceleration in all modes of operation, including all electric mode in which no gasoline is burned at all.
• Highway speeds up to 87 miles per hour in either all electric or hybrid mode
• Even faster acceleration and higher speeds possible in future production models should the company decide to configure them for such performance.

AFS Trinity XH-150 Performance Comparison Table

	AFS Trinity XH-150	2008 Lexus RX400h	2007 Saturn Vue Greenline	2008 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid
Combined City/Hwy Mileage	150 MPG	25 MPG	26 MPG	20 MPG
0-60 time - Full Hybrid mode - All-electric mode - Mild Hybrid mode	6.9 secs 11.5 secs 12.5 secs	7.5 secs	12.5 secs	8.1 secs
Top Highway Speed	87 MPH	116 MPH	106 MPH	112 MPH
Weekly Gasoline Cost	$7.93	$47.60	$45.77	$59.50
Weekly Electricity Cost	$7.56	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Total Weekly Fuel Cost	$15.49	$47.60	$45.77	$59.50

And another great thing is they’re talking about pricing it in the low-mids $30,000’s when it goes public – only about $8,000 over the current “normal” SUV gas-guzzling car price and still less than most luxury cars. And unlike most of the current hybrid cars, this is a true SUV, with room to haul stuff and have passengers (at the same time!)

Check out their video to see it in action (and listen to the neat jazzy background music):

AFS Trinity is a privately-owned Delaware corporation headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, USA that is developing Fast Energy Storage for vehicular, spacecraft and stationary power systems that utilize batteries, flywheels and ultracapacitors.

Technorati Tags: Cars, ENVIRO, Hybrid