Magnets

Can magnets dramatically reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in vehicles?

The UK Advertising Standards Authority and the US Federal Trade Commission certainly don’t think so….  

In October 2004 in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed suit against International Research & Development Corp. of Nevada, and its principal, Anthony Renda, for making deceptive and unsubstantiated claims about their FuelMax and Super FuelMax products. It had been claimed that these products would “increase gas [petrol] mileage by 27 percent... [and] reduce emissions”.

The final settlement was for $4.2 million.

The settlement also imposed a lifetime ban on the manufacture, advertising, or sale of FuelMaX, Super FuelMaX, or any similar product and barred the defendants from making any “false or unsubstantiated claims and misrepresentations that [these] products increase gas mileage or reduce emissions”. It also imposed a number of other restrictions on the activities of the defendants. Copies of the stipulated judgments and orders are available from the FTC website: www.ftc.gov.

Several years earlier, Ecoflow Ltd. was reported to the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) by several UK Regional Trading Standards Authorities for making unsubstantiated claims about their products. One of these was a magnet which they
claimed would “Save fuel…reduce emissions; improve combustion; improve performance; improve torque; keep engine cleaner; extend plug life; [and] prolong [the] life of catalytic converters”. The sales literature went on to state that the Ecoflow ‘fuel economiser’ had been “officially tested by the Department of Trade and Industry’s Environmental Executive Laboratory [at] Warren Spring.

The ASA took expert advice on the Environmental Executive’s report on Ecoflow. It judged that “the testing procedure was flawed… [and that] the results did not prove the efficacy of the Ecoflow fuel economiser”. It noted that the vehicle tested was “too old and too variable in its exhaust emissions for the test programme used”, and it concluded that the reference to the report was misleading. The ASA also stated that “the letters, testimonials and articles sent by the advertisers to support their claims for the fuel economiser and the Vector 100 [a different device which allegedly protected mobile phone users from harmful emissions] did not constitute rigorous scientific evidence”. Further details can be found at the authority’s website: www.asa.org.uk.

For more on this story and for information on genuine ways of reducing the carbon footprint of transport, read Issue 1 of Sustainability magazine.