Trials of aluminium-air batteries in electric vehicles could begin in India after Indian Oil, a minority stakeholder in battery developer Phinergy, began talks with a domestic vehicle OEM.
Depending on the outcome of the talks, Israeli firm Phinergy’s technology could be tested in field trials by the unnamed electric vehicle maker.
Indian Oil is also planning to form a joint venture with Phinergy that will manufacture aluminium-air battery systems.
Phinergy’s aluminium-air systems combine aluminium, oxygen, and water to produce energy. Oxygen is combined with the metal to create an aluminum hydroxide, which activates the electrolysis process and creates an electric current.
“If the field trials are successful and if our talks with EV makers fructify, the metal-air batteries can complement the lithium-ion batteries to provide a hybrid solution for large-scale adoption of electric vehicles,” Indian Oil’s chairman Sanjiv Singh is quoted as saying in the Indian newspaper The Economic Times.
Singh was also quoted as saying the company had set up 43 EV charging stations and would pursue its plans to manufacture lithium-ion and hydrogen cells.
The technology is interesting in so much as its promise of 1,500 mile driving range on a single charge.
But, as BEST finds in its latest edition, the technology’s promise of high energy density and low cost is still a long way from commercialisation as developers grapple with the high volume of products from the electrochemical reaction, aluminium’s passivating surface and it being a primary battery.
In the UK inventor Trevor Jackson believes he has cracked the secret to commercialising the technology.
But an unwillingness to talk to our battery expert Dr Mike McDonagh suggests things aren’t developing as well as he had hoped last year when he predicted batteries costing £0.08 a mile would be on UK roads during 2020.
Watch this space.