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Dutch students create modular electric car "you can repair yourself"
(www.dezeen.com)
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this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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Technology
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This reminds me of a guy that used a portion of the energy generated by his car's alternator to generate hydrogen and oxygen and feed it into the air intake, achieving over 100mpg efficiency in a stock vehicle.
He died mysteriously shortly after that.
Edit:
https://tcct.com/news/2020/11/the-mysterious-death-of-stanley-meyer-and-his-water-powered-car/
Well, it's physically impossible to capture more energy from burning hydrogen and oxygen than it takes to separate it. Combustion engines are only something like 30-40% efficient in ideal operating conditions.
Building a repairable car on the other hand is very much possible.
I was hoping it would be more obvious what I was getting at, but apparently the flu is hitting me harder than I thought.
I'm suggesting that the existing Automobile industry will not welcome their efforts.
I hope they succeed.
That sounds like a free energy device, which is not possible.
Hydrogen has a round trip efficiency of 30% when used in a fuel cell, and closer to 10% when burned in a combustion engine. The energy taken from the alternator will always be much more than the extra energy provided by burning the hydrogen.
Many people have made wild claims about fuel efficiency or free energy devices. If they were true, it would be easy for anyone to replicate the results.
Perhaps the hydrogen simply raised the temperature much higher? Given that the efficiency of ice is driven by dT.
Before safety was a concept most cars on the road did 100mpg whilst also being prone to spontaneous explosions due to the extreme temperatures they ran at
I choose to believe he was murdered by big oil because it's more convincing than that it is not actually a free energy device.
I know the whole story and I have picked my side. 😁
"I choose to believe the factually incorrect thing" I'm hoping this is a joke but it's hard to tell on the internet
Half joking. The design worked by electrolyzinh water and intaking the resultant gasses into the air intake, also it was with a dune buggy, also water vapor alone improves ICE efficiency, so it's not that unreasonable that he'd get 100mpg.
Also, the petrochemical industry would totally murder over something like that.
It did not literally run on water. That was just marketing.
Any electricity used for electrolysis came from gasoline. If you turn on a bunch of electronics in your car, your alternator gets harder to spin and your engine consumes more fuel to do it. Then you're putting energy into breaking bonds which is energy you will partially (but not fully) recover by burning them. It's impossible for this system to result in a more efficient engine.
Thanks