A New Car!!

A couple of things bothered me about that posting regarding the car that runs on water. I just don't think the physics make sense. Look at the steps: take water, apply electric charge, perform electrolysis, capture hydrogen to mix with air in an electrolysis reaction. The efficiency of this process versus just fueling a car with hydrogen and going through the electrolysis process escapes me. Take a look at this Wikipedia entry on the subject:

Water electrolysis does not convert 100% of the electrical energy into the chemical energy of hydrogen. The process requires more extreme potentials than what would be expected based on the cell's total reversible reduction potentials. This excess potential accounts for various forms of overpotential by which the extra energy is eventually lost as heat. For a well designed cell the largest overpotential is the reaction overpotential for the four electron oxidation of water to oxygen at the anode. An effective electrocatalyst to facilitate this reaction has not been developed. Platinum alloys are the default state of the art for this oxidation. The reverse reaction, the reduction of oxygen to water, is responsible for the greatest loss of efficiency in fuel cells. Developing a cheap effective electrocatalyst for this reaction would be a great advance.

So, I just don't get this one and it sounds like phony physics. If someone can explain it to me, I would appreciate it.


Then there was the story of the new Honda fuel cell car. It was a great story. A non-polluting car .The car for the 21st Century! The I found this story in the New York Times.

Honda will make just 200 of the futuristic vehicles over the next three years, but said it eventually planned to increase production volumes, especially as hydrogen filling stations became more common. On Monday, Honda announced its first five customers, who included the actress Jamie Lee Curtis.

and then this:

Mr. Fukui said the cars cost several hundred thousand dollars each to produce, though he said that should drop below $100,000 (emphasis TRM) in less than a decade as production volumes increase.

This car is not the modern equivalent of Henry Ford's Model T, which the average guy could afford. This is for the ultra-rich and the celebrity class.

If I pay $100,000 for a vehicle, it had better have wings!