The History of the Water Powered Car
By Luke Drever
The idea of a water powered car has been around for quite some time and everyone must have heard this suggestion in the past. The fact is designs for water powered engines have been around for 70 years.
The first such car was demonstrated by Charles H. Garrett in 1935, which reportedly ran for several minutes. The car essentially only had a modified carburetor that included electrolysis plates in the throat of the carburetor. This foray into water fueled cars was reportedly relatively unsuccessful for some unknown reason and research was halted.
The science behind water powered cars is usually through electrolysis of the water to produce a mixture of Hydrogen and Oxygen (called oxyhydrogen, HHO or Brown’s Gas). This gas is then combusted to produce energy.
The overall process can be represented by the following chemical equations:
2H2O 2H2 + O2 [Electrolysis step]
2H2 + O2 2H2O [Combustion step]
The theory has not only been applied to water powered cars but also hybrid cars, which continue to use petrol but use water as a supplement to increase mileage. Around 1970, Yull Brown developed technology which allows cars to burn fuel more efficiently while improving hazardous emissions. In Brown’s design, a hydrogen oxygen mixture (so-called “Brown’s Gas”) is generated by the electrolysis of water, and then fed into the engine through the standard air intake system.