Getting back to the Sonata, is that all we did? Well...... no.
As stated earlier, our cumulative experience encompassed testing many, many different technologies. Quite a few just didn't pan out. A select few amazed us. For the X-Prize Sonata, we mostly targeted stuff that worked for us in the past.
Some of what we tried was based on "friends'" solutions that seemed to have answers, and some was based on our own research. We had formulated theories of what
should work and tested it.
One of the "
friends'" technologies was the
Cal Cat. It was a device that incorporated a catalyst chamber for the fuel, and a heat exchanger fed by engine coolant. The concept was that the heated catalysts in the Cal Cat chamber would break down the heavier HC molecules in the fuel to smaller -- more homogenized molecules. We had seen compelling evidence that it works -- and it did!. Later, we realized that this metallurgy and chemistry worked for awhile, but the catalysts eventually degraded and, worst case scenario would plug the fuel line.
