Hydro Drive goes to Philippines, FuelMAX returns to India

Venkatachari Jagannathan
21 October 2002

While the domestic market witnesses the import of several automobile fuel-saving-cum-emission-control devices, a homemade product, Hydro Drive from Hydrodrive Systems and Controls (HSC), has entered the Philippines market. The Chennai-based company is also looking at China for a possible technology sell-off.

“We will be soon shipping around 5,000 Hydro Drives to the Philippines as the first shipment numbering 500 units has been sold out,“ says HSC chairman and managing director S Gopalakrishnan. “Also, negotiations are on to sell the technology to a Chinese company as managing a joint venture sitting in Chennai will be difficult.“

Outwardly a simple cylindrical product with two wires dangling to be connected to the battery and a small nozzle for fitting it to the fuel line, Hydro Drive is an automobile emission controller as well as fuel economiser that works by microwave heating of the fuel (petrol, diesel), thereby altering the fuel's molecular structure for optimum burning.

Gopalakrishnan says the tests done by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Chennai (the city transport corporation), the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, vehicle dealers and individuals have confirmed that by fitting Hydro Drive, vehicular emissions get reduced at actual fuel / road conditions, while improving mileage. “The burning of the fuel and emissions are interrelated.“

According to him the company has sold around 7,000 units since the launch of the product six years ago.

The magnetic therapy products
In the meantime, the US-based International Research and Development, which produces fuel-saving and emission-control devices, has appointed the Pune-based Indian Electric Company as its distributor for India and Bangladesh.