Japanese invent car that runs on water

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - Tired of petrol prices rising daily at the pump? A Japanese company has invented an electric-powered, and environmentally friendly, car that it says runs solely on water.

Genepax unveiled the car in the western city of Osaka on Thursday, saying that a liter (2.1 pints) of any kind of water -- rain, river or sea -- was all you needed to get the engine going for about an hour at a speed of 80 km (50 miles).

"The car will continue to run as long as you have a bottle of water to top up from time to time," Genepax CEO Kiyoshi Hirasawa told local broadcaster TV Tokyo.

The basic power generation mechanism of the new system is similar to that of a normal fuel cell, which uses hydrogen as a fuel. According to Genepax, the main feature of the new system is that it uses the company's membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which contains a material capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction.

Though the company did not reveal the details, it "succeeded in adopting a well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA," said Hirasawa Kiyoshi, the company's president. This process is allegedly similar to the mechanism that produces hydrogen by a reaction of metal hydride and water. But compared with the existing method, the new process is expected to produce hydrogen from water for longer time, the company said.

With the new process, the cell needs only water and air, eliminating the need for a hydrogen reformer and high-pressure hydrogen tank. Moreover, the MEA requires no special catalysts, and the required amount of rare metals such as platinum is almost the same as that of existing systems, Genepax said.

Unlike the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), which uses methanol as a fuel, the new system does not emit CO2. In addition, it is expected to have a longer life because catalyst degradation (poisoning) caused by CO does not occur on the fuel electrode side. As it has only been slightly more than a year since the company completed the prototype, it plans to collect more data on the product life.

At the conference, Genepax unveiled a fuel cell stack with a rated output of 120W and a fuel cell system with a rated output of 300W.

120W system

In the demonstration, the 120W fuel cell stack was first supplied with water by using a dry-cell battery operated pump. After power was generated, it was operated as a passive system with the pump turned off.


Internal View of 120W system


This time, the voltage of the fuel cell stack was 25-30V. Because the stack is composed of 40 cells connected in series, it is expected that the output per cell is 3W or higher, the voltage is about 0.5-0.7V, and the current is about 6-7A. The power density is likely to be not less than 30mW/cm2 because the reaction area of the cell is 10 x 10 cm.

Meanwhile, the 300W fuel cell system is an active system, which supplies water and air with a pump. In the demonstration, Genepax powered the TV and the lighting equipment with a lead-acid battery charged by using the system. In addition, the 300W system was mounted in the luggage room of a compact electric vehicle "Reva" manufactured by Takeoka Mini Car Products Co Ltd, and the vehicle was actually driven by the system.


300W generation system mounted in a luggage room


Genepax initially planned to develop a 500W system, but failed to procure the materials for MEA in time and ended up in making a 300W system.

"It does not require you to build up an infrastructure to recharge your batteries, which is usually the case for most electric cars," Hirasawa added.

Whether the car makes it into showrooms remains to be seen. Genepax said it had just applied for a patent and is hoping to collaborate with Japanese auto manufacturers in the future.

Most big automakers, meanwhile, are working on fuel-cell cars that run on hydrogen and emit -- not consume -- water.

Although the production cost is currently about ¥2,000,000 (US$18,522), it can be reduced to ¥500,000(approx. $5,000) or lower if Genepax succeeds in mass production. The company believes that its fuel cell system can compete with residential solar cell systems if the cost can be reduced to this level.

That's right, $5000 to buy a compact that runs on water....If this goes into mass production, the middle easterners' ears will perk up like a dog hearing a whistle.

and no, there was no explanation as to why Jason is in the front seat.

cause if successful this car will hack the competition to pieces?

G'faw, g'faw

The only question I have about this is that there are already areas of the country without enough water... something like this wouldn't help that at all...

Yes folks, you can indeed get free energy.

Ironically, Iowa would be the place to be with one of these cars right now.

I just wonder if salts would have any negative affect on performance or lifespan. Really, the freshwater shortage wouldn't be a problem as seawater is pretty plentiful.

Sweet perpetual motion, batman!

i would assume they've already taken that into account seeing as they say it can take any kind of water.

looks really safe too. like a gust of wind could blow it off the road. think what an 18-wheeler could do

and a train can fuck up an 18 wheeler. C'mon man, it's irrelevant. We all take a risk when we get in our cars everyday. People in tractor trailers can still die in a crash with a smaller car, it's all in the way the accident unfolds.
Besides, once this technology grows and expands, it will be able to power larger vehicles.

it's not irrelevant either. of course accidents can happen in all sorts of ways, thus i would like to improve my chances when possible of not getting injured due to the safety of my car in certain situations. for example, what if a flash flood drops when you're in the middle of some interstate or turnpike driving one of these with no where but the shoulder to pull over to? judging SOLELY by looks here, looks like it could get spun around and thrown off the road pretty quickly. atleast much more likely to than my pickup even. i dunno, just seems like more a 'city driving' ride anyway. if enough people could use it for that, what a difference it would make obviously.

could also obviously be wrong here about all of it. maybe it can be safer in the long run than the cars that fill our roadways. but you shouldn't quickly dismiss my question simply because the obvious advantages it offers. now do those outweigh my point of skepticism? i would say so (atleast for most people they would) but there's always something to consider, depending on the person. of course i'm not dismissing something like this and the benefits it could have in numerous ways. and like you said as the technology grows and expands, it could even possibly power larger vehicles. that's when the true revolution would come because almost everyone would be willing to give it a try. whatever it takes, i'm all for finding something else, evolving and finding other plentiful, less-polluting resources available to power everything we do. i'm still going to be honest with myself, and that's a question that raises in my mind.

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile? Everyone needs to drive a vehicle, even the very tall. This was the largest auto that I could afford. Am I therefore to be made the subject of fun?

Just admit, you have a small penis and big cars make up for it.

This is what I was thinking...I mean, not only have we found the solution to our gasoline problem, but we have also found the solution to the entirety of global energy issues. Who needs fusion!

But then again, you and I think a little differently when it comes to stuff like this.

So what do you suppose they're not telling us in this article?

The water has to come from the blood of white babies.

Im still on the "too good to be true" side of the fence. Every year we hear about someone saying that could use water as a fuel and then turns to be a fraud.