Do Hybrids Have A Place In Enthusiast's Hearts?
Mention the word hybrid in the automotive context and more than likely, the reaction around you will be the stereotyped image of a Japanese commuter car that's more attuned to sipping fuel than giving a car guy an exhilarating drive. And that wouldn't be far from reality, as it's cars like the Prius that have made hybrid cars an acceptable alternative to cars running on gasoline, diesel or LPG alone. Millions of Prii have been sold by Toyota and that wouldn't be the case if the car did not live up to the expectations of consumers. Although high performance hybrid-electrics look to be fairly common nowadays, it was cars like the Tesla and Karma that opened the eyes of enthusiasts to the possibilities of the sporting electric car. Now, manufacturers from GMC to Porsche have offerings like the CR-Z, the Cayenne SUV, the Sierra medium truck and the RAV. In effect hybrids have come of age and a little expenditure on aftermarket accessories is all a new owner needs to remove that cookie-cutter look from his/her green car. Before we dismiss the new crop of hybrids are anything but boring, consider that electric motors produce their torque from zero rpm.
In a street car or SUV, torque is what makes the vehicle accelerate hard and fast from a stop. In the urban jungle, this is exactly what you need to pass those pesky cabs or close gaps in traffic. Electric motors have these in abundance and in fact surpass small engines in this aspect. Actually, even big engines. In a recent video posted on YouTube, a Tesla Model S sedan out-accelerated a BMW F10 M5 to 100 miles per hour - two out of three times. And the Tesla S isn't the fastest-accelerating hybrid out there. At the moment, the king of the hybrid hill is the Infiniti M35h. So the performance is there. And remember, unlike a pure electric, a hybrid still has an internal combustion engine to help power the car and charge the batteries. So you can still take that road trip and blast down that winding road. With hundreds of dollars left over to splurge on refueling yourself, instead of pouring all that money down the gas tank. Or enough money left over to equip your hot hybrid with a performance suspension. One aspect of traditional performance cars that hybrids will never be able to copy is the beautiful sound of a highly tuned engine. Some manufacturers are reportedly trying to develop aural systems that will help mitigate the loss of that audible symphony. Certainly, aftermarket accessories like exhaust systems will suffer from slow sales. It remains to be seen though how that will be accepted by the public. What's a fact at this point is that high performance hybrid electrics are here. If manufacturer's offerings are any indication, it seems that there's enough interest in these cars to keep on developing them.
He would likely shake his head at such alternative energy terms. Instead, he鈥檚 applied nanoparticles onto graphene and onto nickel plates to create cheap efficient hydroxy gas. As you now know, you must introduce electricity to split the water and derive oxygen and hydrogen gases. This is the most impressive part: Dr. Dai鈥檚 latest research into electrolysis created a water-splitter that can be powered by a single AAA battery. That鈥檚 huge. That means you could convert renewable resources into electricity, store it in tiny batteries, and then use those batteries to split the water. Dr. Dai envisions his process being used to create cheap hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and not as a source to create HHO/hydroxy gas for water-powered cars. In recent years, there have been a few water-powered cars to make it into mainstream news cycle. In 2002, a company called Genesis World Energy/United Fuel Cell Technology announced they patented a process that split water into HHO gas, and then mixed it together again to create a fuel.
Four years later, in 2006, after raising nearly three million dollars from investors, the owner of the company, Patrick Kelly, was convicted in New Jersey of theft. There鈥檚 also Genepax, a Japanese company that announced in 2008 they created a car that runs on water. But the company and its technology was roundly savaged by Popular Mechanics magazine. Eight years later, the company is still around, and was recently touting its new world-changing water-powered car that runs on two cans of soda. Their claims remain doubtful. There was also Filipino inventor, Daniel Dingel, who claimed to have created a water-powered car. He even filed a patent application with the USTPO. In 2000, he convinced Formosa Plastics Group to partner with him. And a mere short eight years later, in 2008, they were suing him for fraud. Formosa Plastics Group won. Dingel was imprisoned for twenty years. Most recently, in 2015, a Swiss-French company, nanoFlowcell AG, unveiled its water-powered car line. And, unlike the others to come before it, they鈥檝e stayed open for business and aren鈥檛 being sued for fraud or theft.
Despite initial criticism and skepticism from journalists who assured the Tesla car company they had nothing to fear from this French-Swiss water-powered upstart, this year, the company offered multiple models of their water-powered fuel cell vehicle. They don鈥檛 burn HHO gas, instead, it鈥檚 a flow system that runs on electrolysis to power a fuel cell. It鈥檚 still essentially, a water-powered electric car. Is this the beginning of a tech revolution? One that dark forces have attempted to suppress and were willing to kill inventors in order to keep their inventions from seeing the light of day? These sorts of questions are rarely truly answered until everyone involved is dead. The more important questions to answer: Are alternative energy geniuses like Eric Dollard and Bob Boyce right? Does Tesla still have a lot more to teach us if we follow his understanding of electricity? Can Tesla鈥檚 ideas of oscillating electrical fields and dielectric effects mix with Dr. Dai鈥檚 nanoparticles to create new materials? Perhaps a water-powered car is a foolish dream. But it鈥檚 equally clear: we don鈥檛 yet fully understand electricity. Yes, Elon Musk is a genius. No doubt. But there is a big difference between his Tesla motor company and Tesla the man. This distinction may be key to the path humanity takes.