Dan's Papers - September 5, 2008

Last week I read in the paper that an auto mechanic in East Hampton is now offering a way to convert your car engine from a regular gas-powered car to a hybrid that runs on both gasoline and water. Yes, that's right. Water.

Apparently, we have been able to run cars on water since the invention of engines but nobody, until recently, thought this was a good idea. I checked it out, and the catch to converting your car from running just on gasoline to a car that runs on both gasoline and water is that it costs about $1,500. That will pay for itself after just a year of driving, however, because you will get about 50% or more miles per gallon. If your car gets 20 miles per gallon now, it will get 30 with this hydrogen fitting.

As a Smart Car driver, I really feel kind of guilty when I go to the gas station. Pulling into the Hess in Wainscott is a showstopper for a lot of people when they see that it costs me only $26 to fill my gas tank. It seems magical to those who watch the pump stop - for me, too. I'm not the kind of guy who feels guilty about much of anything, but watching a guy fill up his pickup truck these days is painful, even though gas prices have come down in the last month or so.

Every once in a while I share a moment with another green-friendly driver, usually someone in a Prius, but occasionally somone in a Smart Car. You will be gassing up next to a Prius and give sort of a head nod that says, "I have a car that's green, too," and you make a mental note that the person you just nodded at is an extremely, almost annoyingly good person, even without getting to know him. It's instant camaraderie.

On other occasions, and this is getting more rare because gas is just so terribly expensive, you'll be filling up next to a completely decked-out Hummer with flat-screen televisions on the back of the seats, a roaring engine and a beautiful custom paint job and rims. The driver will get out, begin to fill up and he'll look over at you sort of enviously. He'll give you a look that says, "I wish I didn't have to fill this car up for so much money."

I get nervous in these moments because I don't want the machine gun turret on the top of the Hummer to turn me into Swiss cheese, so I generally try to avoid eye contact, but the Hummer driver just can't resist saying, as his pump starts passing $70, "Do you feel safe in that thing?"

I've been asked this question a million times now, but when it's posed by a Hummer or other large SUV driver, I don't really know how to respond. I feel very safe in my car, and it gets all kinds of rave reviews about its safety, but do I really want to let a guy that is paying $80 every three days to fill his car know that? He'll hate me.

I keep wondering if the price of gas is going to decrease enough that it will get more tolerable for people. My guess is that it will come down to a low right around November and then scoot back up to outrageous highs again. It's probably a good time to buy some oil stocks.

Of course, when it comes to the Smart Car, it is all about the gas mileage that it gets, and all I keep thinking about is what would happen if I got this hydrogen adapter for my roaring three-cylinder engine that gets 44 miles per gallon. If I were to get the hydrogen adapter and it did what it says it does, I'd be getting around 70 miles for one gallon of gasoline. But then, of course, if everybody got the water adapter, the price of a gallon of water would skyrocket through the roof.