SOUNDS GOOD: “Think about it: a 5,000-pound vehicle that gets 60 miles to the gallon and does zero to 60 in five seconds!”

UPDATE: Several readers think this is a hoax, or at least overstated, and one writes:

Nice dreams. but i find many issues with the story.

I use waste veggie right now in my Dodge. It clatters more than diesel, not less, the engine is less quiet than on diesel. You have to filter your wvo to less than 5 microns, and you can’t do that through a pair of jeans (it generally won’t flow through denim at less than 140 deg F), and it takes a pump to push it through a filter. If it were that easy,
more of us would do it. (trust me, I run 20K+ miles a year on veggie…..)

Biodiesel does require different materials in your fuel system (believe me, I *know* this from experience…The hard way). And biodiesel uses feedstock, just like ethanol does. His idea about electric (plug in) vehicles is good, and not far off the mark, but the devil is in the details. TO get good range, you need a LOT of batteries. You can’t “go next door to Ace Hardware and buy a DC electric motor” and just “bolt the electric motor onto the back of the
transfer case” and hook up the batteries. In the basics, that works. In reality, you need gearing to mate the DC motor to the rest of the drivetrain, and the weight of the batteries is prohibitive if you want any real range. (again, I know this from experience in DC driven farm carts and such). I’ve built 5 so far.

Hydrogen and Natural Gas are wonderful fuels, but they won’t cut mileage in half. At best, they are an alternative fuel. They will produce more power, but so will adding more gasoline or diesel to the current engine’s fuel mix. Hydrogen does help diesel burn cleaner, but it is cost prohibitive. The diesel guru’s have often used propane or Natural gas to increase HP in their engines. But it’s just putting another fuel into the engine. More miles per gallon of diesel, perhaps. Less fuel used per mile? No.

If adding hydrogen or propane or natural gas were economical, don’t you really think that the freight companies would use it? They’ll do anything to save a buck, but they haven’t. It really doesn’t save anything. More HP in the same size engine, but at a reduced lifetime.

Ethanol as you have posted previously, is at best a boondoggle for farmers via subsidies. It really doesn’t save any energy after all has been considered. If we had sugarcane, it might, but corn ethanol is a waste of good food.

He has some good ideas. But converting them to practical automobiles for people and cargo transportation? That’s the rub.

Yeah, over the years I’ve heard a lot of stuff that sounds good about homebrew MPG tinkering. Often you can make a vehicle that works pretty well if the driver is also the designer and mechanic; it’s a lot harder to make something you can sell to consumers. I’ve also heard a lot of hoaxes. Don’t know which this one is. There’s some skepticism in this DailyKos thread.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More discussion at Bill Quick’s place.