Why no diesel Prius?

[thatguitarguy]

Is the exhaust blown through the water/solution ala reverse bong? (Not that I would know how a bong works. I just saw it in the movies.)

[Christ]

Bong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That should get you started.

I can only imagine that blowing the exhaust directly through the water would cause some issues with back pressure that would have to be accounted for. Water is a whole lot more dense than air.

[Frank Lee]

Outboards don't seem to mind it much.

[Christ]

You sure they're not designed for it?

Do they even have mufflers, or do they use the exhaust flow through the fluid to quiet the exhaust tone?

What about the length of the exhaust?

All those things need to be considered before something like that could really be used.. also, would the owner of the vehicle ever remember to top off their muffler fluid, or drain the tank and remove the filtered particulate?

[Frank Lee]

No

[Christ]

See edits

[Frank Lee]

At any rate seems to me it's workable.

[Christ]

I'm not saying it couldn't be done, I'm just saying that it's not a "tomorrow" sort of thing.

In other words, you're not going to see Caterpillar or Detroit or White putting cans of salt water on their trucks come next week, or even next year, ya know?

I can imagine there being a salt water filling station at truck stops, though.

Probably not of much concern, but would this cause more rain? Imagine the millions of miles each year that people drive, and all the water vapor that would get released over land (including what already gets released)... would that affect weather patterns?

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

Too bad auto companies and the government don't issue emissions standards to improve the environment or you might see workable loopholes like the one I mentioned above available.

Apparently cleaning your exhaust with saltwater is good enough for most large ocean vessels but works too well for the auto industry?

Heck you could run a malfunctioning 2 cycle diesel from the 50's and still have clean exhaust using water, which begs the question why not?

IIRC the limiting factor for this sort of stuff was mobility. Ships have access to water wherever they run, so it's no an issue for them, nor was it an issue for relatively stationary heavy duty diesels on land, but having to carry around way more water than fuel isn't viable for most road going vehicles.

[Frank Lee]

I wonder how fast it boils off?