Sunday, June 15, 2008

Water Powered car unveiled in Japan

Genepax, a Japanese company, has unveiled a car that can run on water. It apparently extracts Hydrogen from water and uses it to create energy to fuel the car. The prototype was driven around in the city of Osaka in Japan. Engadget has more details:

The key to that system, it seems, is its membrane electrode assembly (or MEA), which contains a material that's capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction. Not surprisingly, the company isn't getting much more specific than that, with it only saying that it's adopted a "well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA." Currently, that system costs on the order of ¥2,000,000 (or about $18,700 -- not including the car), but company says that if it can get it into mass production that could be cut to ¥500,000 or less (or just under $5,000)


There is a video from Reuters that I have tried to embed below, but I am not sure if it will show up on the final blog (here's the link to the Reuter's page that houses the video):



Update: Looks like there's more to it than meets the eye. See this discussion on Slashdot.

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