"I get their spam in emails, I see their Google Ads, and now I see them on the local news.
Run Your Car on Water!
STOP IT!   This foolishness has to be debunked.

At first, I got a few emails about "Revolutionary" devices, "recently patented" devices, and of course the big headline was "Run your car for 60% less gasoline". They sold you instructions on how to build this generator that hooks up to your car battery to produce HHO gas.

I used to see an occasional Google Ad out of the corner of my eye every once in a while while browsing other EV websites. The ads had titles like "Run your car on water". "Make your own Gas." "Double your mileage." I clicked on one or two of the ads, and read the claims. We will send you a book with instructions on how to make your own HHO generator.

I never bought one of them, because you can see videos about this subject all day long on YouTube. Search for HHO gas, Brown's Gas, Car on Water, or similar phrases. Now, do the same search, and add the word "scam" to the end of the search. Amazing. I'm not a petrochemical, mechanical, electrical, or a chemical engineer, but being a "software engineer", I do deal with logic day in and day out, and folks, these claims are just not logical.

Then, I started seeing press releases about a new car that will get better mileage due to a Hydrogen Generator.

Ronn Motors announced a new sports car in Austin in June that would get 26% better mileage using an Acura motor, and a $3000 add on that generates Hydrogen. Price tag was $150,000. For that kind of money, I would buy a Tesla.

I found an HHO Generator produced by a company called Aquygen, that is used to power jeweler's torches. It runs on a 220 volt power supply. It takes a lot of electricity to make these generators run. It sells for $6995.

The H2O 1500 Aquygen™ Gas Generator runs on water and electricity only! It produces a stable hybrid hydrogen-oxygen gas, with many unique properties. The generator provides a superior gas for most conventional brazing, soldering and metal cutting operations.

The H2O 1500 is a mid-sized machine, weighing about 160 lbs. with dimensions of 16" x 24" x 26" or about 5.75 cubic feet. It is powered by standard 220v current and can run continuously on 3/4 gallon of water for approximately 8 hours. The unit can operate one standard brazing/soldering station or multiple jeweler torches simultaneously. Additional models are currently under development.

I thought it may be fun to have the Discovery Channel's Myth Buster's do a story on these devices, and I ran across this site named mythbusters.com, and although it wasn't really the official site for the show, they did debunk myths. They had an article about the myth of the waterfueled car, which I agree with. While visiting the site, the familiar Google Ads were displayed. There above a story about how these devices don't work was one of these ads.
I guess Google
doesn't have any problem assisting
these people with marketing their scam.


Then a guy at work sent me a link to a site, and they were selling a kit for several hundred dollars. I tried to explain that breaking water down into gas is not done with a 12 volt system in the quantity that is needed to replace 50% of the gasoline vapor your car will combust. I think I saved him a few hundred bucks, he was about to order it. I sent him the link to Broken News @ KSAT.com


I thought it may quiet down, and then someone told me that some news stories had been going out that SouthWest Research Institute was testing a new "invention" that could "double maybe even triple" gas mileage. SWRI is known for their involvement in many fuel industry research projects.

"Researchers at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio are testing a water fueled hydrogen generator that could be used with standard gasoline engines to increase mileage. The hydrogen generator, created by Steve Gerhlein, an auto mechanic in San Antonio , has installed a system in his cars that generates hydrogen using water mixed with potassium hydroxide. Mr. Gerhlein says that there are lots of plans for hydrogen generators in the internet, but most of them don’t produce enough hydrogen to help much. Also, Gerhlein changes the settings on the car’s computer to enable the engine to work better with the new fuel mix. He installed one in his wife’s Lexus SUV, which originally got about 14 miles per gallon in city driving. With his hydrogen generator the Lexus got about 19 mpg, but after tweaking the computer the SUV now gets 26 mpg. And, for as long as it lasts, this is the KVUE video of the "news story". Check out this transcript of what was said. Is Charlie Roberts talking about testing Gerhlein's device, or just giving an opinion about all HHO generators? "You can't get something for nothing. And starting with water is a very difficult way to get energy," said Dr. Charlie Roberts, with the Southwest Research Institute. The technology to produce hydrogen gas is actually about 100 years old. Through electrolysis, two molecules of hydrogen are separated from the one molecule of oxygen in H20 (water). The relatively new use is burning the elements separately to supplement gasoline. It seems almost futureistic to take water from your faucet and put it into a generator under your vehicle's hood and drive away. "We tested several vehicles in New Jersey last month and the numbers were like fiction, you know — 80 miles per gallon with a 4-cylinder Honda, 80 miles per gallon with a 4-cylinder Ford Focus," said professional mechanic Steve Gerhlein. "This system doesn't do anything more than help stretch the gasoline dollar by converting water with a chemical, which is potassium hydroxide mixed up in a special proportion. And then it makes hydrogen and oxygen that the engine then uses as a fuel." I guess interviewing a researcher about Hydrogen cars, and splicing it together with Steve Gerhlein's statements makes it "news". How Sad.

I suppose if you want a website to refer people to, the WheatDogg website has the best graphical explanation.

Here is a website that is offering a million dollar prize for proof that an HHO generator does what it claims.
They also offer a simple test to see if your device is generating the "claimed" horsepower.

And lastly, the real Mythbusters show website.

On July 3rd my wife told me she saw a news story on KSAT news, and she heard the guy say he had 10,000 orders at $1500 each. He was going to reduce the price to $1000.00.

10 million bucks!

Oh, it's Steve Gerhlein in San Antonio, host of the KTSA radio show about automobiles, and he is also claiming to have invented an improvement to the device. It has a computer chip, and involves tweaking the car's computer, and it doubles fuel mileage.

An open letter to Mr. Gerhlein. Mr. Gerhlein, If your device is as great as you say, come out to Seguin, and we will fill up your Lexus and drive to Houston - or maybe avoid the traffic and just go to Katy. We will record the time of day, the temperature, and the amount of time we took to get to Katy. Then, we can turn around in Katy, and come back to Seguin and fill that Lexus up, and see how many miles to the gallon it gets. Then we will take a second trip to Houston, and try to match the speed, as best as we can. When we return for the second time, we will get another fill up. Easy! Here are the conditions of the test. Only one of the trips will have the device activated Neither of us will know which trip it was until both trips are over and the tank is refilled. A third party will be required to set the device on or off and disable the "computer" chip. If you won't subject your invention to a double blind test, then you are selling a scam device. I know you stand to make millions, but frankly, my name is worth more than that. John Penry

Brian Lasseter of the AustinEV group has this statement of the "numbers"

The burning of Hydrogen produces 286 kJ/mol...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen#Combustion
Gasoline has an energy content of 44.4 MJ/kg...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline#Energy_content
A mole of hydrogen weighs only 2 grams...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_%28unit%29
Thus a kg of hydrogen has an energy content of 143 MJ/kg compared to gasoline's 44.4 MJ/kg.

A gallon of water electrolyzed produces 0.40kg of hydrogen for 57MJ of
energy content. One pint of gasoline is 473cm^3, and the density of
gasoline is around 0.74 g/cm^3. So... a pint of gasoline weighs
0.35kg for 15.5MJ of energy content.
So, you are correct that a gallon of water takes can produce more
miles driven than a pint of gasoline.

Granted, it would take 140MJ of energy to electrolyze the gallon of
water at 100°C (for 0.4kg of Hydrogen)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_electrolysis
Or, stated another way, it would take 1.1 gallons of gasoline to give
you the energy to electrolyze one gallon of water which would produce
enough hydrogen to deliver the same energy content as 0.45 gallons of
gasoline.
Hence, you are better off burning the gasoline to power your car than
to bother with any sort of intermittent step involving hydrogen or
water.

Update: August 9, 2008

Update August 30th, 2008

Update November 2008

Update April 2009

Back to Top