Daniel Dingel’s Water Powered Car

Today as I was reading our college Yahoogroups, my friend Mok mentioned a unique Filipino invention - a water-powered car invented by Mister Daniel Dingel. His patent is pending, but his invention has been around since 1969. I was intrigued that an idea that is both cheap and environment-friendly has not been seriously adopted bu automobile makers. This is not to say that other car companies have not considered other technologies that did not make use of fossil fuel. The Toyota Prius is a prime example, a hybrid electric/gasoline car that can go 55 miles to a gallon, and is only going for $20,000.

After googling a bit, I found this site, which contained a Quicktime movie of Dingel demonstrating his water-powered car, albiet vaguely and not going into much detail. The “hydro car” is said to be able to use tap water or even seawater, and can function for one hour per one liter of water. Naturally, I tried to look into the logistics and feasibility of such a project - I mean, surely there must be a reason why the technology has not been adopted, barring the petroleum taxes that motivated government officials to ignore the idea for their own selfish reasons.

There are some detractors and unconvinced pundits as to whether the technology would actually work in a production environment. There are some observations that the amount of water is not sufficient to generate the needed current to power the car, and that the fuel is actually nitrogen hydroxide created by the action of low pressure/vacuum on hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen (from the air) … and since it’s a nitrogen-based compound, it “is” highly explosive, although Dingel doesn’t explain how he gets around it (one of his trade secrets, apparently)…

Dingel has mentioned that he had suggested his invention to presidents as early as the Marcos regime, then the Aquino period, and so on… the Philippine government always says “ah, that’s a great invention!” but fail to organize the movement to make the water car project achieve fruition. A few countries have approached Dingel about his invention, most notably Japan, who has suggested an agreement that he did not like. Naturally, the inventor wants credit for his invention and share the profits - Japan, on the other hand, wants to buy it and develop it in their name.

In any case, Dingel says that his priority is the Philippine government, and that he wants his invention to be an authentic Philippine product. But with the current state of Philippine politics, not to mention the amount of national debt and the continuing misallocation of national budget, it is almost impossible for the Philippines to finance a possible multi-billion dollar endeavor. Not to mention the lack of resources to undertake further R&D on the engine, which still raises eyebrows among skeptics in the international scientific and automotive communities.

If you are interested in the development of this environment-friendly invention, there is a Yahoogroups for it. Check it out at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/watercar/.