While I don't want to belittle blue-collar ingenuity, the vapor carb's inventors are trying to solve a nonexistent problem. According to John Heywood, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and an authority on internal-combustion engines, incomplete burning of fuel is insignificant in modern cars. Fuel combustion today typically exceeds 97 percent. Claims to the contrary are fraudulent, and I gather Professor Heywood said as much in a report he wrote for the U.S. Postal Service, which was investigating high-mileage carb vendors for fraud. Carburetors in general are an obsolete technology now being replaced by electronic fuel injection, which offers superior emission control.
Truth is, vapor carbs are the equivalent of the improved buggy whip.
On the contrary, there are plenty of proven energy-efficient technologies available, none of which has lacked for publicity or industry backing. A few years ago Renault trotted out a rig that got 121 mpg on the run from Paris to Bordeaux. I'm told the gas mileage record for motorcycles is about 400 mpg, and if you really want to go crazy, a GM subsidiary recently built a solar-powered prototype called Sunraycer that doesn't use any gas at all. On the downside, it seats only one, has no trunk or luggage rack, and barely has room for a pair of fuzzy dice. But hey, life is full of trade-offs.