Automotive Ecology, still selling snake oil.

Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I’m really sorry to report that Automotive Ecology in the Netherlands are still selling Oil Drum’s Fuel Saver several years after the product was show to not work by the UK Government’s vehicle testing station at Millbroke. Indeed it and all other HHO fuel saving gizmos cannot work.

I really feel for  Automotive Ecology, they were scammed by Oil Drum back in about 2008, they probably invested their life savings into this project, they are in so deep that they can’t back out. But the bottom line is that the “technology” cannot and does not work, all the claims on their website are complete nonsense and the more they try to sell the product the more guilty they become of not just being foolish but of being fraudulent too.

They claim that you can save up to 30% on your fuel bill. And the evidence that they have to back this up? Well you can be sure they don’t have any because they can’t have any, the “technology” is bogus and it cannot work.

All the evidence we are offered on their website are four anecdotes. Anecdotes that we can’t even check up on.

Why and I so sure it cannot work? Because there is nowhere for this extra energy to come from. Every time one of these magic HHO machines has been properly tested it has never been shown to work. What is more, because the HHO unit is consuming energy running the unit will actually consume more fuel than not using it.

So why don’t Automotive Ecology have their unit properly tested? Prove me wrong. Well  it is either that they know, deep in their hearts, that it does not work and by avoiding having it tested they avoid the painful truth. Or they think they already know it works so why would they need to test it properly. This is, of course, exactly why they need to have it tested.

A chap in NL has recently called them out for their selling this nonsense.  Automotive Ecology, you should look up the Streisand_Effect. Don’t throw a tantrum when you see this post, don’t act like the schoolyard bully and threaten me, show us the data that proves that your product does what you say it does.


  1. Anoniem:

    Fact is that these type of lies are allowed in Belgium (Automotive Ecology is BELGIUM and NOT Dutch) but these lies are prohibited in the Netherlands.

  2. Jon:

    I don’t think I have confused the Netherlands with Belgium, I certainly know the difference. I’m intrigued to learn that it is legal in Belgium to say “my product will do X” when you have no evidence that it does anything of the sort, or even when you know it does not do X at all.

  3. Anoniem:

    In the Netherlands we have Reclame Code Commissie (advertising code commission) who can go to court AFTER some one has complained. Also “Vereniging tegen Kwakzalverij” (society against quackery) can take legal action AFTER some one complained.
    In jurisprudence with totally other product (other than its a scam too) “Biostabiel2000″ there has been a set precedent in the Netherlands. They had to change their claims in advertising & commercials and went bankrupt soon after this.
    I’m not aware that Belgium has similar organisations who can take legal steps after some one complained. Sure there will be but this explains differences in legality of such claims. Although EU, every country has (still) its legal sovereignty.

  4. Pepijn van Erp:

    Automotive Ecology is based in Belgium, but they had several projects in the Netherlands, that’s why I became interested in the first place. They seem to do business mainly with intermediates. In all cases I saw there was a local garage involved. I thought this was just for practical reasons, because of the limited resources of Automotive Ecology, but there might be legal reasons as well.
    I know of one garage owner who feels betrayed by Automotive Ecology, but it will cost him to much legal trouble to get some of his money back (he himself payed back the customers who were dissatisfied with the system):

  5. Automotive Ecology wins award with bogus technology » Pepijn van Erp:

    [...] a while they stopped bugging me and the website administrator. Jon Starbuck of eco-scams also picked up the story at this [...]

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