If somebody said they could save you more than 20% on fuel, triple the life of your engine oil, and cut your emissions by 80%, would you believe them?
Well… a local trucking company did and now they are spreading the word that it actually works. What they’re calling a breakthrough in hydrogen technology in our Tech Trends report.
With 250 semis on the road across the east coast to up far west in Denver, locker-based Equity Transportation considered a wager. Plans like Steelcase, Hayworth, The Meyer, so it’s probably no surprise that somebody’s always trying to sell them something claiming it would save some fuel.
We do like to call them “snake-oil” sellers and all we’re doing is adding enough hydrogen to burn that dollars worth of diesel that you
just bought. Instead of 87 cents or 86 cents, you’re burning 99 and a half, 99.9 cents.
They started with 10 test fuels, bolted on to existing trucks in their fleet, some with high mileage.
When we put the thing on, the thing just took off and started running and we couldn’t believe it but there are the results…
The results, they say, were confirmed independently with Dyno Test at the local WW Learning Service Center and Emissions Test at Iowa State. Fewer mileage went from the lone sixes to the high eights. Emissions cut by 80%– 18 or stricter standards for the year 2014. And the life expectancy of their motor oil tripled!
How it worked?
What if we have a 1.8 liter of bottled water here…the water goes through the reactor and separates the hydrogen and oxygen in gas form, pipes it in down the gas hose into the intake manifold.
Think of like a nitrous system on a race car. Adding a whisk of hydrogen that helps burn every bit of fuel the combustion sets.
And it’s important to the guys riding in the cab because, right now, trucking has only got a margin of about 5 or 6%. When you can burn the entire contents of that fuel tank right there, instead of pouring it up the smoke sack, you can save up to 30% – but keep in mind, these units aren’t cheap.
The typical hydrogen generators are around $10,000 and uh…1 or 2 dollars a gallon there’s no justification to it that $3, 3.50 a gallon it can be a One year payback.
Equity recently showed off their new technology to Michigan Truck Inspection. Showing their tests and even displaying how clean the heads look after 40,000 miles of hydrogen injection on a 140,000-mile engine. Even so, with so much snake oil out there, people are skeptical.
I experimented with it…uh…myself. Uh I’d seen it work—glimpses of it but it—it’s not proven yet.
Definitely I saw some increase with uhm fuel economy. Uhm and that—and a byproduct that can be horsepower, that’s not their goal, Their goal is really good fuel economy and — It works! The thing works!
These units are produced in Canada and sold through a distributor in Nova. According to Equity Transportation, they weren’t the only trucking company in the entire country using hydrogen injection.