The Electric Car Thread- Merged

[c_canuk]

Sigger, I suggest you look for documented cases where current modern technology flew in the face of established science and prevailed. You are not going to find many instances.

This company will either disapear quickly like every other junk science alternative fuel car that has been touted in the media as a revolution since about 5 minutes after the first production car hit the roads, or it will it will come up with convincing prototypes that don't quite work and will bilk investors for billions trying to tweak the problems out of the system.

If it hits show room floors running only on water, save this post and use it to claim your prize from me of $1000 dollars. If it doesn't hit the floors you owe me a coke.

 

[Sigger]

:rofl: wow... Im not sure why, but I found that very funny.

Well, very shortly, there will be a conferance held in the US. This car will be looked at by other scientists as a validity check.

Either way.. I am sure there will end up being major issues in using water as fuel. I am not so convinced that even if it is proven to be possible, it is going to be much better for the environment.

It would be nice to achieve a scientific breakthrough, but it won't be done by bending or breaking the laws of science.

Reading what little information there is on this new system, it would not be breaking any laws of thermodynamics - just a new and revolutionary ...um... thingy.


*edited for grammar and quote

 

[Good2Golf]

Hmmmm....cold fusion reincarnated?

Reading what little information on this new system it would not be breaking any laws of thermodynamics - just a new and revolutionary ...um... thingy.

In fact, it does.  It pretty much flies in the face of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in particular, the Clausius model of the heat engine.  Water is already the lowest energy-state model for any combination of hydrogen and oxygen compounds, and gaining any appreciable change in energy would require an input of external work.  Something that couldn't come from the water as an energy source itself.

 

[Sigger]

Oh boy...

Well, when you insert an aluminum plate into water by itself, does it not create hydrogen via oxidation?
This little nugget is a good read.

In fact, it does.  It pretty much flies in the face of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in particular, the Clausius model of the heat engine. 

I am assuming you have not read anything aboot this car, eh?

 

[Good2Golf]

Oh boy...

Well, when you insert an aluminum plate into water by itself, does it not create hydrogen via oxidation?
This little nugget is a good read.

I am assuming you have not read anything aboot this car, eh?

1.  Your assumption is wrong.

2.  You have proved my point precisely about the second thermodynamic law -- adding additional work in the form of a reactive metal compound to the water, thank you.

3.  As well, my thanks to you for providing me with my chuckle of the day.  I like the picture of the professor with the eye patch...Aaaarhhhh, Billy!  Perhaps he should have been wearing the same protective eyewear that one of his grad students is sporting.  The other student should also be wearing protective eyewear; eyeglasses don't stop wayward chemicals from potentially splashing into the eyes.

G2G

 

[Sigger]

Your welcome! I also tee hee'd a bit from the eyepatch.

It is not my intention to prove/disprove any fact/law/theory/practice/opinion/whatever.

I am simply saying that there is a lot out there we do not know. There will be many breakthroughs we once thought impossible. Is this one of them? I am sure we will find out soon enough.

And in defence, I only said that link is a good read, not that i think it has anything to do with the 'thingy' in question.


Plus, I am quite enjoying this thread.

 

[Loachman]

Even on Star Trek, "Ye canna change the laws o' physics".

 

[Strike]

Sigger,

It's probably best not to try to disprove anything G2G says.  You remember the Pinky and the Brain cartoons?  G2G is both...the mental capacity of the Brain and the goofiness of Pinky.  A dangerous combination to be sure. 

Oh yes, Professor Pirate gave me a nice chuckle to end the day.  ;D

 

[Good2Golf]

Sigger,

It's probably best not to try to disprove anything G2G says.  You remember the Pinky and the Brain cartoons?  G2G is both...the mental capacity of the Brain and the goofiness of Pinky.  A dangerous combination to be sure.   

Oh yes, Professor Pirate gave me a nice chuckle to end the day.   ;D

;D

A free beer to anyone who can photoshop a realistic parrot onto the Professor's shoulder, and submit the photo to the publication indicating corrected photo credit!

G2G

p.s.  Strike, you know me too well!  >

 

[Sigger]

It's probably best not to try to disprove anything G2G says. 

It is not my intention to prove/disprove any fact/law/theory/practice/opinion/whatever.

A free beer to anyone who can photoshop a realistic parrot onto the Professor's shoulder, and submit the photo to the publication indicating corrected photo credit!

Mmmm free beer...

 

[c_canuk]

Oh boy...

Well, when you insert an aluminum plate into water by itself, does it not create hydrogen via oxidation?
This little nugget is a good read.

I am assuming you have not read anything aboot this car, eh?

well well well, someone"discovered" whats been discovered for a long time, if you put something in water with a stronger molecular attraction to oxygen than hydrogen the oxygen will be pulled free from the water molecules and chemically bond with the introduced substance...

that makes water the OXIDIZER since it is the source of OXYGEN and the Aluminum the FUEL since it is the substance being OXIDIZED.

This is the exact same process as using Metal Hydrides.

Aluminium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Production_and_refinement

now aluminium in a reactive state is extremely rare in nature, therefore it has to be refined, Aluminium is refined using electrolysis (sound familiar? instead of using watts to seperate water now you're using KW to seperate Aluminium) to remove the oxygen molecules from the chemical Al2O3

therefore 2Al2O3 + 6 units of energy = 2AL2 + 3O2

at this point some of the original 6 units of energy is lost due to heat energy losses due to the electrolysis taking place in molten metal heated to under 1000 Kelvin, and heat of the electrical process of electrolysis

now we take the 2AL2 and add it to water

2AL2+6H2O = 2AL2O3 + 6H2

Now at this point somemore of the original 6 units of energy is again lost due to this reaction as heat energy (ie MRE heaters)

after we collect the hydrogen we still only have as much energy as 2H2 + O2 = 2H2O will give us. Due to the laws of thermodynamics we know due to no other energy introduced to the system, the energy we end up with will be much less than the 6 units to create the aluminium in the first place.

now....

that said...

IF this new Aluminium/Gallium fuel can be used as a high density energy storage medium for hydrogen it may have merit, but it is ridiculous to claim that the car is running off water, just as it is ridiculous that a petrolium based engine is running off oxygen.

This proves that yes indeed there is an additional source of energy entering the system and it would be more efficient to power the motor directly rather than use the electricity to refine aluminium.

So you are still wrong.

HOWEVER

If the aluminium compound can store more energy per square inch than batteries after taking into account of the energy losses in creating it, it may be the new energy STORAGE solution the EV developers have been looking for.

In the end, you still owe me a coke because this car is not fueled by water.

It is fueled by electricity that is transmitted via 2 chemical changes, Thus making it improbable as an efficient energy storage medium. It is a complicated battery that requires disassebly to be reused as it cannot be recharged.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Even on Star Trek, "Ye canna change the laws o' physics".

Other than that whole "travel at the speed of light" or time travel thing.

 

[Sigger]

I dunno c underscore canuk, while all very interesting, is not a lesson in chemistry I seek.
I am looking for a sitrep on the water-powered vehicles operation.

Although, it is interesting that the same stats that this company has released, is pretty much the same as the electric motor version...

 

[Shadowolf]

At one point in time, the laws of 'science' stated that the sun revolved around the earth. Most of the greatest scientists viewed that as something not to be argued with.  I will support sigger on this one in that keeping an open mind about water-powered vehicles.  While I doubt the 'Put in water, burn Hydrogen,  and Oxygen is your exhaust' theory, if they can even use the process to somehow mitigate some of the inefficiencies of the engine it may be a step in the right direction. 

 

[Good2Golf]

At one point in time, the laws of the church, masquerading as the official authority of   'science' stated that the sun revolved around the earth. Most of the greatest scientists viewed that as something not to be argued with.  I will support sigger on this one in that keeping an open mind about water-powered vehicles.  While I doubt the 'Put in water, burn Hydrogen,  and Oxygen is your exhaust' theory, if they can even use the process to somehow mitigate some of the inefficiencies of the engine it may be a step in the right direction. 

it did, but then un-scientifically constrained science took hold...

 

[Bert]

I don't think Genepax has released their engine, system design, or overall
specifications publically.  We just see a car driving around and doesn't take gas
from all reports.  If true, no matter the method, it is interesting and so
may be the engineering.  The specs would show it must adhere to the laws of
thermodynamics.  Likely other important information and vehicle sub-systems
we don't know about.  Watch and shoot. 

 

[c_canuk]

if they can even use the process to somehow mitigate some of the inefficiencies of the engine it may be a step in the right direction.  

that is impossible

everytime you add a step in the system where you convert one unit of energy to another form you always loose a little bit of energy to heat losses, etc. even if there were 100% efficient processes, they would add no benefit to the system. Adding extra steps in the real world will always increase waste energy

The best that this group has come up with is a complicated impractical battery that uses at least 1 more energy conversion process than existing batteries.

The only way this discovery will be relevant is if the energy density is a magnitude higher than current battery technology, (keeping in mind they aren't using lithium ion tech in cars yet and they are getting 200 km per charge), the reason this process may have merit is that the battery completely consumes itself where regular batteries don't. This could be the break through in energy storage they've been looking for, but it is not turning water into fuel.

This process will consume more electricity than directly powering the motor, but if they can make it store enough energy to drop the weight of a vehicle and extend it's range to 600 km with the ability to rapidly refill, then the total amount of energy might not matter as electricity mass produced is much more efficient, cheaper and cleaner than each car on the road burning fossil fuels.

The limitation on Electric Vehicles is energy density or their storage medium, if this solves that problem we will see a revolution in automotive technology.

I truly hope they are onto something here but I doubt it because if they were legitimate scientists they would not boast the car is running on water when it clearly isn't as that is irresponsible of them, and doesn't bode well for their legitimacy

 

[Sigger]

When is the last time the Japanese said they have made something, just for fun?
Y'know, besides Godzilla.

The wikipedia page is also a good read.

Oh, and remember when Scientists stated a theory that maggots were created out of raw meat?  Smashed!

 

[c_canuk]

When is the last time the Japanese said they have made something, just for fun?
Y'know, besides Godzilla.

last time I heard of was 2 years ago when they claimed to have invented a cloak of invisibility. this was a Poncho with a web cam on the back, feeding an LCD projector displaying an image on the front.

They have hucksters just like we do, to assume they are somehow immune from the ambitions that cause every other nation from creating hoaxes is naive at best and racist at worst.

You continue to spout conjecture and hippy dippy speech while ignoring fact and established science.

The wikipedia page is also a good read.

not really. That is a page full of debunked water powered cars with one tiny paragraph about how Genepax "says" they have a car that runs on water but won't tell anyone how it works to protect their work, never mind that patents are designed to do just that, and the fastest way to get massive development investment is to show how it works and prove it's not a hoax...

unless it really is a hoax and you're looking to rip off naive idiots who believe in hippy dippy speech about how innovators continue further science by realizing the power of their dreams, rather than the scientific process : when if fact innovators who succeed are known for putting different systems together in an a way that is not obvious, they do not challenge the laws of science.

That page and the specific article you reference prove you are wrong, it almost perfectly matches what we've been telling you

Oh, and remember when Scientists stated a theory that maggots were created out of raw meat?  Smashed!

1. Theory is not Law, scientists propose theories on what they think the simplest explanation for a phenomenon is, then they test it. Then if they think they have something they release the results and other scientists test it.

Theories are expected to be proven false, as that allows the scientists to test the next simplest explanation and so on until no one can bust a theory on what causes that particular phenomenon.

A LAW is an description of a never changing phenomenon.

2. The theory you are referencing was debunked by an experiment consisting of 2 jars of meat, one with a cheese cloth one without, The theory was thought up by a crackpot in the 1600s when they were still burning witches. The experiment was conceived as a way to prove "Spontaneous Generation" or that dead matter could spontaneously generate life, it was not taken seriously by anyone who had any education. It was based on a joke that one could create mice by combining rice and underware in the dark.

This half baked theory has only held relevance in the anti evolution crowd as they use this one half baked experiment as proof dead matter cannot come to life, even though it only proves that meat <> maggots.

If that's the sort of place you go looking for scientific data I weep for you.

 

[c_canuk]

you do realize that the website you just posted with the picture is covered in scams right?

none of that works.

if that is really genepax the companies website, I'd be completely convinced this is a hoax scam.