More British HHO scams – HHO Fuel Soutwest and HHO4U
More anonymous emails have brought my attention to more HHO scams in the UK. HHO Fuel Southwest is a scam, as is hho4u / hydrotechnixuk.co.uk.
Both sites make the same preposterous claims of reduced fuel consumption and cleaner emissions as every other pedaller of this nonsense. There is no prof that any of their claims are true for the simple reason that it is not true, it is a scam.
What is new to me is both sites claim something which I have not seen before, they claim you will be entitled to lower road-tax because you will be able to re-register your vehicle as a “hybrid”.
I contacted the DVLA to see if they are allowing this and to ensure they know that this is a scam. They replied that they most certainly do not consider these systems as hybrid and that “neither the vehicle registration certificate or the vehicle excise duty (VED) rate will need to be changed”.
I’d therefore presume that anyone saying that the DVLA have allowed a change of status to “hybrid” a liar. If you have any proof that the DVLA have done this then I’d live to see it.
The DVLA have so far not been drawn on weather or not the system works, but then this is not their job or their remit, I have an email here saying they have passed the matter to a technical department and will get back to me in 10 days.
Both HHO Fuel Soutwest and HHO4U also both claim to be members of TAMA, some HHO trade association, but I can’t find any evidence of it actually existing.
Hydrotechnix UK also claim that they are in negotiations with Central London Congestion Charging about if their system qualifies. Funnily enough Central London Congestion Charging are unaware of any such conversation, they were very pleased to have had the matter brought to their attention and assure me that there was no way by which any such system could be qualify for the discount.
We have a stringent process and checks in place to certify the validity of any Alternative Fuel Vehicle Discount.
To be eligible for the discount the vehicle must be:
- on the PowerShift register,
- must produce 40% less emission,
- be registered accordingly with the DVLA,
- the person applying for the discount must be able to supply relevant proofs.
With these steps in place I can assure you that only vehicles that are truly eligible will be offer the discount.
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hydrotechnixuk.co.uk is registered to “Hungry Ltd” Unit 20 Red Lion Business Park, Red Lion Road, Surbiton, Surrey, KT6 7Q who are actually “excotek.com”.
hhosw.com is registered to an Andrew Reynolds in Sunnydale, California.
the gas man:
I have no idea what TAMA is, and it is unsearchable on google.
I do know however my own vehicle was fitted with a system from one of the companies in the UK (not any of the above) and now has a Dual Fuel addition to the V5, DVLA had no issues with it and neither did my insurance company when presented with a system summery sheet and certificate of installation.
Just to let you know I again am no for or against person but I wanted to find out for myself if this is a scam or not!.
Fuel saving however, not much! I do have to say it has increased but not any more then 10% max.
16 February 2010, 4:41 pmG:
Can I ask what your views are on all the buses in Nottingham running on hydrogen are then?
14 April 2011, 9:15 pmIjaz:
I have made several test runs by increasing hydroxy fuel generation from 1/8lit to 2lit on 2lit diesel engine and observe no fuel saving but fuel loss.
Hydroxy is a scam. Manufacturers are just making money by cheating only.
26 August 2011, 12:40 pmwim:
“”G:
Can I ask what your views are on all the buses in Nottingham running on hydrogen are then?”"
I have read several posts on this site now after randomly coming across it.
I feel the author would get their point across much more succinctly if they could spell properly and explain more clearly.
To answer your question G:
You are right in part, hydrogen is a real fuel alternative. However all alternative forms of gas, be it hydrogen or LPG need to be compressed and are stored in pressurised steel tanks in the vehicle, like LPG tanks. The vehicles often use more gas than petrol but can sometimes be cheaper and more environmentally friendly. For instance on an old car I had, it would take 14 litres of LPG to travel the same distance as 10 litres of petrol. At the time though, LPG was under half the cost of petrol so it saved me thousands over the years.
There is a vast difference between pressurised hydrogen, H2, used as vehicle fuel in buses like you suggest and HHO which is just another way of typing H2O, or water if you will.
To make hydrogen out of water requires quite a bit of energy and to make any amount that isn’t negligible requires vast energy, specialist equipment and storage and cannot be performed by an in car plastic or metal tube or cone. You have to strip away the oxygen molecule and pressurise the hydrogen to get any effect at all, which cannot be done with ANY of these add on kits.
H2, hydrogen tanks, like LPG are pressurised to approximately 105psi, or four times more pressure than in your car tyre! Hence the large steel tanks the gas is stored in. Regulations state they must also be tested to several hundred psi during installation. The steel tank and steel gas exchanger near the engine has to deal with immense pressure that a cheap tin foil cone or platic tube cannot deal with.
If these add on systems worked, manufacturers would include them in new car models. The spend millions per DAY in R&D tuning an engine and designing the airflow in cars to work as efficiently as possible. A car with higher MPG may sell in higher amounts. Look at diesel Lupo’s for instance. Over 80mpg on a normal diesel only engine. The Lupo took millions of pounds to develop in to the car it is now.
The reason why there aren’t more cars sold with LPG brand new. It is because although LPG has been around for decades, it has been slow to diffuse and isn’t widely available everywhere. My nearest LPG station is 8 miles away whereas my nearest petrol station is 0.8 miles away and I live in quite an urban area FYI.
Hydrogen filling is almost non existent in the UK, hence hydrogen vehicles not being sold to the public en mass either. The next logical step in the UK is LPG, but it still hasn’t taken off as much as some would hope. Hydrogen production and storage is still problematic. Electric cars have some merit despite their limited range and unappealing performance issues, but the way we produce electricity for the grid isn’t clean and until nuclear fusion becomes a reality, the electric car may well have to stay a dream.
Long post short, hydrogen is viable as a singular power source under a pressurised fuel system. However after market kits to modify your existing car fuel will provide no fuel savings whatsoever.
The comments from others are those not wishing to admit they have been conned, con men/women or those who drive more carefully with rocketing fuel costs and associate the change in their driving habit to the modification they have performed.
(If anyone wishes to save money, I will provide anyone here with a kit that will save 10% or possibly a lot more on your fuel costs and prolong your engine life for £250, quarter of the cost of these HHO kits.
It’s called a service. Replace your spark and HT leads, replace sparks, change your oil, change your fuel filter, flush/change your coolant, change tyres to low resistance ones, add fuel cleaner and oil additives and then your car will run far more smoothly and efficiently. I urge anyone to spend their money in this manner, rather than wasting it on useless con kits.)
30 November 2011, 1:20 amLino:
Well there not much to obtain in criticism but to say that HHO does not reduce emission that mean that you are not encouraging anyone to give a hand in environment and on the other hand don’t have any thing to loose because the way you are arguing about this matter as if you own an oil field which is non sentence.So this is what we will do Lets give some thing for who can reduce CO2 emissions and I challenge you that from HHO I can reduce more that 50% CO2 carbon if you just convince DVLA that in writing and 100% confirmation that Tax credit and license fee will be granted when installing an HHO device and also get some information of what you are talking about because you where either asleep these few years or in the middle of Alaska whom even there they encourage people for Dual fuels.You can find more things to criticize than HHO which is the future alternative Fuel Don’t take this personally but thanks very much for your environment encouraging and interest
18 January 2012, 4:29 pmLino Malta