Water-fuelled car

A water-fuelled car is an automobile that hypothetically derives its energy directly from water. Water-fuelled cars have been the subject of numerous international patents, newspaper and popular science magazine articles, local television news coverage, and websites. The claims for these devices have been found to be pseudoscience and some were found to be tied to investment frauds.[1][2][3][4] These vehicles may be claimed to produce fuel from water on board with no other energy input, or may be a hybrid claiming to derive some of its energy from water in addition to a conventional source (such as gasoline).

Most proposed water-fuelled cars rely on some form of electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen and then recombine them to release energy; however, the first and second law of thermodynamics guarantee that the energy required to separate the elements will always be at least as great as the useful energy released, so this cannot be used to produce net energy.[5][6]

  1. ^ Edwards, Tony (December 1, 1996). "End of road for car that ran on Water". The Sunday Times. Times Newspapers Limited. p. Features 12. Archived from the original on October 22, 2012. Retrieved May 16, 2007.
  2. ^ State of New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety press release Archived June 22, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, November 9, 2006
  3. ^ Lopez, Allison (December 20, 2008). "Inventor, 82, gets 20 years for 'estafa'". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Archived from the original on December 26, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2009.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference SriFraud was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Professor doubts water car claims – A leading alternative fuels expert throws water on Japanese company claims that it's developed the world's first car powered by just water. Professor Theodosios Korakianitis at Queen Mary University of London says water by itself would not be enough to get your car going. [1] Archived June 10, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Ball, Philip (September 14, 2007). "Burning water and other myths". Nature News. doi:10.1038/news070910-13. S2CID 129704116. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020. Retrieved September 14, 2007.