'Tata dreams of cars run on water'

Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata’s dream is to see cars run on water and he has invested $ 15 million in a start-up firm supporting research in the field, an eminent scientist said today.

Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister Prof C N R Rao said one of his close friends and a professor in the famed Massechusetts Institute of Technology in the US has found a way to split water directly into hydrogen and oxygen.

“Ratan Tata has given him (the Professor) $15 million so that he (Tata) can own that company when it comes up,” Prof Rao said.

“He (Tata) wants to invest in a company which will split water directly into hydrogen and oxygen,” Rao said, adding, when any kind of water — toilet water, rain water or sea water — can split to hydrogen and oxygen, then these components can be used for energy. “And a dream of Ratan Tata is eventually cars will be run on water. My dream is also that,” he said, referring to a recent conversation he had with the Tata Group Chairman.

Rao spoke on this initiative during a press conference convened by the Chemical Research Society of India to give details of the organisation’s planned activities in 2011.