The only way anyone could possibly believe in the "water-powered car" nonsense is if they had a complete lack of understanding of basic physics. There is no free lunch in physics. Electrolysis requires that you put more energy in than you get out. Consequently, it is not useful as a local source of power in a car. Maybe, where energy is readily and cheaply available, such as a hydro-electric plant, it might have some limited application for producing hydrogen for hydrogen-powered cars, if we ever get a hydrogen infrastructure established, as they are trying to do in China, but presently it is worthless for powering vehicles. You can't have a device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen built into a car, and get more energy out of it than you put into it to get the hydrogen and oxygen to drive the car.
view the rest of the comments →
ardvarcus ago
The only way anyone could possibly believe in the "water-powered car" nonsense is if they had a complete lack of understanding of basic physics. There is no free lunch in physics. Electrolysis requires that you put more energy in than you get out. Consequently, it is not useful as a local source of power in a car. Maybe, where energy is readily and cheaply available, such as a hydro-electric plant, it might have some limited application for producing hydrogen for hydrogen-powered cars, if we ever get a hydrogen infrastructure established, as they are trying to do in China, but presently it is worthless for powering vehicles. You can't have a device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen built into a car, and get more energy out of it than you put into it to get the hydrogen and oxygen to drive the car.
Phantom42 ago
Understanding of physics largely shifted toward the theories (((Einstein))) held, rather than Tesla.
To put it very simply, our understanding of physics is "gravity-based". Tesla's was "wave, vibration, electric-based".
That's the simple way to put it.