Will putting electricity in your gas tank get you more mpg?
Well, there's no shortage of, um, unusual ideas on ways to increase the miles-per-gallon of the car you already drive. Everything from pills for the tank to Brown's Gas appear on our radar with some regularity, but this idea is a new one. It's called "electrorheology" and it means introducing a bit of electricity into the fuel stream just before the fuel is injected into the combustion chambers. The resulting fuel is then more viscous and therefore burns cleaner. According to an article written by researchers at Temple University, this "improves fuel mileage significantly," and the results are being shown in the lab and on the road.
Sounds good, right? Well, our friends at Autoblog gave this a cold once-over and realized that the groups pushing this technology have been behind a lot of similar mpg-boosting technology in the past, the MagChargR and the Zero Emission Fuel Saver (ZEFS). This isn't exactly promising, but we'll be happy to see this work. Until then, I think driving sensibly is the best way to go further on less fuel today.
[Source: Gizmag via Autoblog]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
PERRY 11:19AM (10/16/2008)
The picture they show is of a mercedes diesel. I wonder if it matters what kind of fuel you use.
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Clint LeRoy 8:00AM (10/21/2008)
Maybe if you read other posts you would find better explanations than the shortened version spoken above. This is also old news!
http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2008/09/27/rongija-tao-device/
Chris M 2:55AM (10/17/2008)
There are several electrorheological fluids known, but gasoline isn't one of them. Moreover, the electrorheological property, that it thickens when exposed to an electrical field, won't change the combustion properties and it disappears as soon as it is out of the electrical field. Thickened gasoline would actually be a problem with fuel injector nozzles, and would make the spray atomization less effective.
No, this strikes me as yet another "fuel saver" scam, with a new line of bafflegab to fool the unwary.
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carwaterguide.blogspot.com 1:17PM (11/25/2008)
it's has review many sites like gasforfree,runyourcaronwater etc.
You can truly get better mileage...... http://carwaterguide.blogspot.com
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