$5.00 a gallon gas what will you do?

[Padma]

Count your blessings - it's over $10/gallon here in the UK .

[Dana Lane]

I live in the city so I don't need a car. w00t

[justmeinoz]

Sorry Amy but it won't work due to the basic chemistry involved.  It's like trying to burn ashes in a fire, which obviously doesn't happen.   Water is the "ashes" we get from oxidising (burning) hydrogen. 

The only way to burn the hydrogen again is to split it from the oxygen in something like a fuel cell. Entropy means that you will never get more energy out than it took to extract the hydrogen.

Bit like photovoltaic solar cells. They never over their life produce more energy than went into manufacturing and installing them.

Or in normal language-"There ain't no free lunch".

Sorry, Karen.

[Amy1177]

hi Karen,

I certainly believed the same thing before I started reading Stan Meyers info but i guess only time will tell and until then I will keep putting gas in the car.

[justmeinoz]

Just grab a basic Chemistry book and you will save yourself from another charlatan.

[tekla]

Not to mention you would need pure distilled water, so you need energy to distill it and pure water is perhaps the only thing on earth fast becoming as rare as oil.

[Amy1177]

I have a degree in biology and I understand why it shouldn't work and I also understand why there is a possibility using standard physics from the mid 80's and the way he put it together that it could work.  he was using the water as it's own capacitor to ultimately generate up to 20,000 volts of power and stripped the electrons from the water molecule rather than just rip it apart.  Very radical way to put stuff together.  Strange the guy successfully did so and ended up dead, his research material and operational car were stolen within a week of his death in the 80's

[justmeinoz]

Seeing that a capacitor holds an electic charge between two poles seperated by a conductor I can't see it acting as such if it contains water. 
When you mention those details I start to think 'Urban Myth' I'm afraid.  Bit like  "who killed the electric car?" scenarios.
The answer of course is  "Air Conditioning"! Nobody is going buy a something  that will have them sitting in an un-airconditioned car, in a Melbourne traffic jam  when it's over 40 degrees C, let alone somewhere like Adelaide or Perth in summer.
Death Valley?  Our summers  laugh at your Death Valley!!

[Rock_chick]

Buy a longboard and use it to commute to work. That's what I do

[Amy1177]

At one time everyone thought the Earth was flat too.  I am not explaining it off the top of my head very well.  The info that i am reading is the actual U.S. patents that Stan Meyers was given for the system.  If it was just some off the wall guy that threw some stuff on a website I wouldn't give it any credence at all.  Check it out for yourself.

http://waterpoweredcar.com/stan.html

[MillieB]

Buy a longboard and use it to commute to work. That's what I do

I live in a valley, it's never gonna work!

Whilst I understand those who say, use public transport, or ride a bike, this is not a practical solution for everyone. For one thing, our public transport system blows, hard it's expensive, unreliable and frankly, smelly! Many people work 20, 30 or more miles from where they work and don't have the time or the energy to cycle that far every morning and then start work as an exhausted sweaty mess. I am not a diehard motorist, far from it, although I do own a little car, I still haven't passed my test so I speak about public transport from many painful years of experience.

People can raise environmental issues to justify the high cost of petrol and this would make sense if the extra duty was ploughed into better alternatives but it isn't it just goes into the same black hole that the rest of our money goes into. It's just a nice soft touch for the taxman as people need cars.

[Lynne]

We already have pretty high fuel prices, 7.5$ a gallon is the cheapest 95 octane petrol and it is around 10$ a gallon if you want premium 100 octane petrol. Compared to our wages here, it is outrageous. So what I'll do? When I'll finish building my almost 30 years old turbocharged Japanese coupe I'll fill it up with 75 liters of 100 octane petrol and I'll have some fun

[justmeinoz]

Lately i have been using 98 Octane, the highest you can buy here. Currently around AUD $1-60 a litre.
I find that both my bike and car get enough improvement in consumption to more than offset the greater cost.  They also run better and give more performance. Win-Win situation.
Regular 91 Octane is around AUD $1-35 litre.

Anne, don't be surprised at the economy you will get when the engine is off boost. Depending on the carb/injector setup, the turbo can break up the fuel droplets more finely, giving more efficient combustion.  I am seriously thinking of a Sprintex centrigfugal supercharger for my 1987, 1200 Honda City Pro-T. Should give about 100 bhp and over 50 mpg (Imp gal). No intercooler need either due to their efficiency.

Karen. (the rev head).

[Lynne]

Only one fuel company has 98 Octane petrol here, only other choices are 95 or 100. My car can be surprisingly economical for an old 2L turbocharged vehicle with throttle body injection. I'll maybe make a compromise and fill it up with 98 Octane petrol, it should be good enough(but not much cheaper), the user manual states 97+ octane

[justmeinoz]

100 Octane? Lucky you! In Oz we get 91, 95 and 98.   
If your car has a throttle body injector you should get the same fuel churning effect as a carby.  I had an old article by the  great engineer Phil Irving( he designed the Vincent V-twin m/c engine and the Repco Brabham F1 engine in the 60's) that explained  it all.
I figure if 64 bhp and 650 kg goes okay, then 100 bhp should be almost enough to dent a WRX drivers ego!!

[Lynne]

Yeah, we can get a lot of things here, just have to pay the quite high price for it
I plan to go for MPI in the future, that should solve the inherent problems of the TBI system, but right know I would be happy to use the car as is. It's a quite heavy car, so I'm not expecting really great mileage, but it's not too bad. It's 1220 kg and 180 BHP, it goes alright

But back to fuel prices, our government is greedy as hell so the tax on fuel(and everything else) is very high. It is not the highest in EU but compared to the living standards here it is quite a ripoff.

[Hikari]

While I want a smart fortwo or a different (but less cute) car, I think that at a certain point I don't need a car if I really don't want one, it just makes things rather impractical.

Where I live I can take the train up to the DC area, it takes a long time. I can also get around my local city with a bike, but some of the roads aren't really safe for it. A 50cc scooter is also good for that and gets about 100mpg, and feels a bit safe than a bicycle on busy roads. Even with $5 gas, it isn't too bad to get that sort of fuel economy.

A car is just simpler though, and the area I live in, public transportation is an after thought, not something that the local government seems to care about.

[Beni76]

In my last job, my employer had an incentive of they would pay you $10 a day to ride a bicycle to work or otherwise they would pay your public transport fares if you took that.
In my current job, I take a work vehicle home, so can't complain.

My personal car is diesel and is efficient considering it is 25 yrs old at about 7km/litre . I pay equivalent of about $5 a gallon here in Darwin Australia and as fuel prices go up I will continue to drive it, well that is for as long as I have it. I did want to get something a bit smaller and maybe something a bit less masculine, though that's not what I bought it for

[Medusa]

I bought this week next car
It have nice 17 mpg (14 l/100km)
But it cost me just 200$ (3500czk) and look in good shape, so with this price I have lot of money for gas 

[Jen-Jen]

Pay for it! There is no way in Hell i am driving anything less than a V8! or Giving up my Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor