Based on the recent news release from Leonardo Corporation, and on comments by Andrea Rossi on the Journal of Nuclear Physics, I think we can have a fairly good idea of what to expect at the demonstration of the E-Cat powered electric vehicle which has been announced will take place this October.
It sounds like it will be a day-long event, and will take place at a race-track with invited guests and members of the media in attendance. An electric vehicle will be driven by human drivers continuously for at least 12 hours, except for short pit stops which will be seconds long, just enough time for one driver to get out of the car and another to get in.
At the beginning of the test, the EV’s battery level will be checked, and also at the end of the test. The important measurements to be taken will be DoD (depth of discharge) and S0C (state of charge)
DoD and SoC are closely related, and are measured in percentage terms. So a SoC of 100 means the battery is fully charged, thus DoD would be 0. If the DoD is 100, then the SoC would be 0 (completely exhausted).
If the car runs for 12 hours and the SoC is 100 at the end of the test, then it will be a demonstration that the E-Cat SKLep SSM works very well indeed, as the E-Cat will have been shown to keep the battery fully charged during the journey.
If the battery drains and the car stops during the test, then it will not be a successful demonstration from Leonardo’s perspective.
The smaller the battery, I think the better it will be for Leonardo (providing the car keeps driving for 12 hours). If the EV has normally only a driving range of say 100 miles, and the car drives continuously for 600 miles, then obviously something unusual is going on, even without measuring the charge level of the battery.
Another way to measure the success of the test will be how much attention it gets. We have seen that Leonardo wants members of the news media to be in attendance, to help get news out. If the test is technically a success, but no one hears about it, then that could constitute a partial failure. I am sure that the test will be filmed and video posted online, but so far Leonardo Corporation’s YouTube channel has only a modest 1.6 k subscribers.
Leonardo’s stated ultimate goal is to generate enough pre-orders to begin production. So far the 1 million pre-order goal has not been met. Media coverage is needed to boost the pre-orders, and that could turn out to be the most difficult part of this demonstration.
