A while back, we wrote about the air-powered car that has gained some credence because of the much-needed backing of the big group Tata of India, a conglomerate that also recently absorbed the Land Rover and Jaguar operations from a cash-strapped Ford Motor Company.
Now here comes another motive source that has been bruited about for some time: the water-powered car. However, the people behind this project claim that their car runs on more than just clean water. Supposedly, it can also run on salt water, soft drinks, alcohol, etc. Imagine this scene evolving in front of a bar or nightspot: A proud owner of a water-powered car goes in to partake of his favorite libations and then, feeling the call of nature, goes out to his car to empty himself of waste fluids directly into the gas tank. Ugh!
The company that developed the car, Genepax, is now the happy beneficiary of attention from prime car companies Honda and Toyota. If they are interested in this technology, this means that there is something to it after all.
Meanwhile, we recall a Filipino inventor named Daniel Dingel who also touted a water-powered car using roughly the same technical process as proposed for the Genepax car.
Whatever happened to inventor Dingel?
Well, it seems that time and his reticence has passed him by. I actually met the fellow and he made me go over his car, smell the exhaust (no fumes!) coming out of the rear pipe, and so forth. My friend and I, both retired bankers, encouraged Dingel to sign an agreement with one or two big car companies after protecting himself with the appropriate patents. It seems that the paranoid inventor feared having his invention stolen and the technology mined to his detriment. Well, as we said, the train passed by and no one will certainly talk to Dingel now that enough research and development work has gone into non-traditional means of automobile motivation.
Watch the following feed which shows both the Genepax car and an old Youtube video of the Dingel car.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
That Dingel “water-powered car” is a hoax - even the Dept. of Science and Technology came to that conclusion many years ago. Just a simple request from DOST officials to test his “invention” from Manila to Bicol was rejected by Dingel.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:43 am
that’s why you have the patent laws to protect the inventors.
sorry dude, you missed your chance.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:57 am
About this water powered car:
This is but the latest in a long string of sob stories about chances blown and opportunities lost by local inventors. I myself have had more than my fair share. Back in late 90s early 9000s, I was introduced to one local inventor who, as far as I could tell, had done serious work on wave powered turbines that can generate power. As a former electrical engineer, I knew right away the inventor had something more than just idle talk, although talk is not the same as doing the lab tests and prototypes that can be used to deliver useful and replicable (in real world conditions) experiments. He was, to put it mildly, in the second of maybe five or six stages to useful commercialization.
Unfortunately, technical knowledge forms but one part of the complete process to commercialization. Equally and perhaps even more decisively, is the need to engender trust on the part of those who will back him up with the funds to produce prototype models to small but actual versions. It became evident that he had to disclose the heart of his invention (a series of them, some of which he held so close to his chest). But he would hear none of it, ostensibly because of fear that his IP could get stolen and his interest shafted. What a completely ridiculous idea to hold against the world, which never has a lack of such ideas in various stages of development, and which rarely gives second or third chances. And so just like this Dingel (if his invention was genuine), he lost his chance.
I have mulled over this incident and many more such local stories (one was about a family that had a stash of masters’ paintings which the patriarch absolutely refused to sell, in fears that he would be cheated upon until he died in oblivion. And many many other inventions which met the same fate of getting overtaken by events or superior inventions all because its owners never knew how to strike the proper balance between risk and return.
In the end it goes back to culture. I have always suspected that Filipino culture is so backward when it comes to risk taking. People would rather waste what they have in vain hopes of cornering a bigger share of the rewards, forgetting that risk is a far bigger issue which, if not properly addressed, would render such hopes unrealizable. when you come to think of it, there is much more to this lesson - indeed the country’s dismal state of backwardness owes to that fatal conceit. Here is a real demonstration that ideas do have serious consequences.
Many of the country’s problems and concerns could easily be shown to amount to a hill of beans if only people were alert to things beyond their immediate surroundings. In other words, Filipinos have trouble with the world because they do not realize what they are missing. But no, they would not care, because they have a wrong self image and notion of reality.
July 17th, 2008 at 8:24 am
I am an OFW willing to spend my lifetime savings to mass produced this water fuel generator by Dingel. Unfortunately, i think the Japanese have caught up with the same idea as Dingel’s. Now recently in the news is the water fueled car developed by Genepac from Japan. I heard about Dingel’s invention when i was still a boy and everybody just laughed at it. Dingel in his interview said that his invention is for humanity and if water fuel has been utilized since 1969, we would have prevented global warming. It was very clear in his interview that IMF and the World Bank had stopped him from developing his invention when the Philippine Government told him not to pursue his invention as advised by the IMF and World Bank. This is real power play by big oil companies and the world suffers.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Thanks to ABS-CBN’s Julius Babao, interest in Mr. Dingel has been somewhat revived.
We’ve received authorization from him and have constructed his official website:
Please do visit. Thanks.