|
Dennis
Lee, HAFC on Dateline NBC
Just before
leaving for a business trip I got a phone call notifying me of a
television show about Dennis Lee and his HAFC (hydrogen assist fuel cell)
system that is a poor “copy” of the Hydrogen Boost system. The Dateline NBC show can be seen by
clicking here. The HAFC dealers claim that they will
guarantee the system will increase the fuel mileage of your car by 50%,
or your money back. They also
claim that their company Dutchman Enterprises is developing a PICC
(pre-ignition catalytic converter) that should be able to achieve 100
miles per gallon on basically any vehicle, and that to get in line to
receive a quote for the eventual PICC, you must purchase the HAFC.
I have restrained myself from
commenting on the HAFC and PICC until now that Dateline has come out with
the same comments I have been holding back, and now people are
associating the failure of HAFC with other hydrogen assist systems that
have come about since Hydrogen Boost began this industry nine years
ago. I have restrained my comments
despite the report that one of our commercial installers had installed
two of the HAFC systems and experienced zero improvements despite numerous
“adjustments” and when he installed his first Hydrogen Boost system he
immediately experienced a 15% increased in mileage as our customers
typically do. My comments to the
HAFC were usually restrained to two words, “Dennis Lee.” If asked to comment on the HAFC I would
tell the enquirer to search Google or Yahoo for “Dennis Lee” and then
read the history of his involvement with fraud.
Now I feel compelled to make
further comments, now that people are associating HAFC with Hydrogen
Boost. Though HAFC is a poor
“copy” of Hydrogen Boost, though they will deny that it is a copy because
it has a fuel additive, their system is poorly designed and inadequate to
achieve what we do, much less the 50% to 100 mpg exaggerated claims they
advertise. My comments should include statements like the following. “I wish these fly-by-nights would quit
ruining our legitimate industry with their exaggerated claims and history
of fraud.” “It should be obvious
to any consumer that 50% increase in mileage is a difficult feat and will
not be accomplished on modern vehicles without a change in driving
habits.” “Claiming 50% increase
and getting little if any, does not fit into our business model of
satisfying our customers with a truthful report of typical mileage gains
of 15% or more.” “The HAFC dealers
have too many hoops to jump through before you can ask for your money
back if you don’t see the promised mileage increase.” “Our guarantee is for customer
satisfaction. Even if you get 50%
increase in mileage, if you don’t like putting water in it, or for
whatever reason, if you return the system within 30 days, we will refund
the cost of everything except the wiring kit, engine treatment, and
shipping, no questions asked.”
Actually we will refund those pieces too if they did not get
used.
One comment I would like to
make about the Dateline show. They
called Dennis Lee the “inventor” of the HAFC system. Though Dennis may technically meet the
definition of “inventor” because his name may be on a patent application,
I don’t consider anyone, including myself, the inventor of adding
hydrogen to the intake air of an internal combustion engine to improve
combustion, because there was a patent issued for that already in
1920. Heating fuel to improve
combustion has also been patented since the early 1900’s. Changing the fuel ratio and ignition
timing has been well known for decades to optimize combustion. And adding acetone and/or xylene to the fuel has been well known for many
years, though questionable in its effects. In fact while I am at it I would like
to complain about many of the fly-by-nights that have been on TV news
casts over the last 3-5 years being referred to as “the inventor” of some
copy-cat hydrogen assist system.
An inventor is someone who comes up with something new, and this
technology has been around longer than most people have.
Now let me make some specific
comments about the Dateline piece.
Does the HAFC “work,” and can we tell by the one test Dateline did
with the Honda Accord they say they bought just for this test? Well, that would depend on the
definition you have for “work.”
Does any piece of the HAFC system actually improve mileage? Or can the HAFC system improve mileage
by 50% on any vehicle? The answer
to the first question must be “yes” and the answer to the second question
must be “maybe?” Let me explain.
Dateline reported that the
EPA qualified testing facility tested the system and got exactly (they
may have said basically) the same mileage with and without the
system. If they got they exact same mileage, then some part of that system
must have given a benefit, because the energy used to generate the
hydrogen was more than the energy returned by the combustion of that
hydrogen because the hydrogen generator was not 100% efficient. So there was an energy loss in the
process of generating the hydrogen and that energy loss must have been
compensated for by the benefit of some portion of the system. Maybe the combustion enhancement
qualities of the hydrogen, maybe the fuel additive, maybe the fuel
magnets built into their “fuel warmer”, maybe the oil additive. Conformation of this fact is the
reported better mileage after the hydrogen generator was shut off,
reported to be around 3%. So some
component of the system improved mileage.
The answer to the second
question above, in my book, must be maybe. Can a system increase mileage by 50%
just with the equipment and without changing driving techniques. Maybe.
Unlikely, but without testing every single vehicle out there, I
could not say that it was impossible.
But I could say I guarantee that it can’t happen, or I’ll give you
$1000. I can say that only because
I have $1000 and the guarantee is not a “guarantee” that it will happen, its just a guarantee that I will give you $1000 if it
doesn’t happen. And I think I
would be quite safe to make the bet that they won’t increase mileage by
50% on any vehicle.
But Dateline cannot say the
system doesn’t work, just because they tested it on one vehicle. However, they could have said, “The odds against the HAFC increasing mileage by 50% on some
vehicle out there is about a zillion to one,” even though a
zillion is not really a number.
What about Hydrogen Boost? Why haven’t we been on the news?
Maybe it’s because our system works as we say it
does. We don’t exaggerate the
mileage improvements achieved by our customers, and we honor our money
back guarantee. Have we been
visited by news agencies?
Yes. In fact the video on
the top of our home page was produced by Max World News but never made it on the air. We have also spent a few days with CNN
in the late summer of 2008 and that piece never made it on the air. Whether that was because the price of
gas fell off so much that it was no longer a news story, or whether it
was because CNN would not air a piece on a device
that actually worked, who knows?
What I can tell you is that CNN tested our system on their own
vehicle and the test showed a 25%
increase in mileage, which I immediately told them must be wrong, because
we normally only expected a 10%
increase with the equipment we were testing on their vehicle. After closer examination of the
protocol used for the test we found the source of the error and
immediately reported to the CNN news crew why the real increase
was only 10%, not the 25% they thought they saw,
explaining the proper calculations.
The piece never made it to the television and we never got any of
the video footage we could use to edit into a video. We do however have the following
pictures of our system installed on their vehicle, the news equipment in
the back of their vehicle, and the great sunburst in the sky, taken just
before the road test was performed.
The point of this article is to emphasize that real
savings in the range of 15%-25% are possible with a good Hydrogen Boost
system, and that exaggerated claims made by many fly-by-night wanna-bees are only hurting our efforts to distribute
a good system that saves fuel and improves emissions. We agree with Dateline that the HAFC
will not deliver what is promised by its dealers. However we would like it known that
there are good systems installed on vehicles that do indeed improve
mileage by a modest amount.
Customer Comment: The following is an email exchange I
had with one of our satisfied customers who read the above newsletter and
reviewed the Dateline Newscast:
Hi Fran,
I was on your website yesterday and saw the video clip
of Dateline NBC concerning Dennis Lee's HAFC. When Hanson asked one
of their "experts" how many of these hydrogen systems that he
has seen actually worked, and he said "none", I was
disappointed, but not surprised. The networks seem to have their
own agenda when it comes to just about anything. Well, yesterday,
in preparation of an upcoming emissions inspection, I disabled my Hydrogen
Boost system, restoring everything to factory original. I cleared
the codes out and ran it for a few miles. Scangauge says the
vehicle is operating closed loop, and the CE light has remained
off. This morning, as I do every morning on my drive to work, I
check my trip average mileage at established checkpoints along my route.
The Scangauge is reset when I get on the interstate, have reached 55 mph,
and the cruise control is engaged. My second from last checkpoint
is about 15 miles from the point of reset. It is at the lowest
elevation of the trip before I have to go over a large hill. The mileage
at this point is the highest, and consistently, with the Hydrogen Boost,
I have gotten anywhere between 40 and 46 miles per gallon, depending on
weather and road conditions. This morning, with the Hydrogen Boost
off line, my mileage at this point was only 34 mpg's. What more
proof does anyone need?
All the Best,
George Sills
George,
I guess as far as Hanson is concerned our system doesn’t “work” because
it didn’t give you 50% increase in mileage, which would have required 51
mile per gallon. But if his definition of “work” was to deliver the
15% I say is typical with vehicles we have tested on, then he would have
to admit that it does “work,” since you got more than 39 miles per gallon
(a 15% improvement). You see, it all depends on what the meaning or
“works” is. For Dennis Lee it would have to mean 50% mileage increase, because that is what he “guarantees.”
Since I only report a typical 15% mileage increase,
that should mean that my system “works.” But you won’t get
Hanson to say that.
Affected by the false claims of others,
Fran
P.S. Thanks for your support.
|
Home
Specifications
Test Results
Technical Information
Testimonial
Video
Demo Video
Newsletter
Order
Contact
Free counters provided by Honesty.com
.
|