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 30th, 2008 at 6:34 am
Hello again Digoy,
What does it take to have Dingel’s car tested? We’ve been sending letters to DOST, DOE, even Sen. Pimentel (who by his press release of Dec. ‘07 apparently still believes in Dingel). No reply to the letters sent by fax last Monday.
Dingel allowed his car to be tested for the reactor’s gas output composition last May. We’re working on having the car tested further for other parameters, including the exhaust composition.
What do you think is the best way to go to have the labs respond? Please e-mail back.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Incidentally, for the one or two doubting Thomases who respond to this blog, pls note that it tends to deal with issues beyond the bottom line. Precisely why it is called Not Just for Profit. I am personally in favor of more companies getting involved in socially or people oriented projects. But companies have to make money too, so that they can precisely indulge in such projects. Unless one decides to put up dedicated projects like Gawad Kalinga — which has a cadre of ex businessmen and bankers helping out — that make use of business models in order to perform its desired people upliftment role through inexpensive housing. Or the CARD network that makes microfinance available to poor women so that they can set up businesses of their own. In both cases, money has to come from somewhere…but it is made to work in favor of people empowerment.
July 21st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Hello to Daniel Dingel!
Am glad you decided to surface. But what are you waiting for? My friend Billy M from the bank we were both with introduced us and you demonstrated your car. I was willing to help you just to get your good idea going. Sayang…don’t you think other good ideas will take the initiative and yours will just become another idea that “could have been”?
At that time, I was in touch with some big car companies and one or two of them were looking into alternative fuels back then.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Water-powered car? It’s a hoax. Pure and simple. What that Genepax company were showing on TV, I bet, was not a car directly ran by water. It was operated by a fuel cell. In that cell, hydrogen and oxgen react to generate the electricity used to run the car. You have to continuously feed in hydrogen into the cell to have continuous production of electricity. It is true, you can get hydrogen (to be fed to the cell) from water. (Remember your high school experiment on electrolysis?) But the process would require more energy than what the hydrogen thus generated could produce.
Honda and Toyota can afford to amuse themselves with this so-called invention of Genepax because these car makers, as a consortium, are now on the lead in producing fuel cell cars. Trailing behind them is the consortium of GM of the U.S. and the German Daimler-Benz. Billions of dollars have been poured by these companies into this research on fuel cell car - the car of the future.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Hello Digoy,
Daniel Dingel’s official website is now up and running at http://DanielDingel.com - check it out.
He’s pretty much alive and kicking and still waiting for the right time.