Ceres Power Holdings PLC (LON:CWR) has partnered up with car giant Nissan to develop a range extender for electric vehicles.
The two firms will work together to develop a compact, on-board solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) that improves the distance electric cars can travel without needing to recharge, one of the limiting factors currently.
“We are delighted to be working with Nissan and M-Solv to enable an all-electric vehicle with a longer range and shorter refuelling time,” said Ceres’ chief executive Phil Caldwell.
“In addition, this project broadens the applications for Ceres Power’s SteelCell technology into the automotive industry as well as using alternative fuels such as biofuels.”
At the start of the year, the company said it planned to announce five major partnerships over the next couple of years.
Second deal with a Japanese car firm
This deal with Nissan is its second, following on from the agreement it signed with Japanese powerhouse Honda R & D to jointly develop SOFCs earlier in the year.
Caldwell hopes to announce a further deal over the coming months.
The agreements in place with Honda and now Nissan will allow Ceres to use its unique metal supported SteelCell technology for a range of potential power equipment applications.
Honda and Ceres have worked together before, and the latest agreement represented a deepening of the relationship, Ceres said.
"This latest agreement with Honda represents a huge endorsement of our Steel Cell technology, in the world's most advanced fuel cell market,” said Caldwell back in January.
“We are demonstrating that we can successfully deliver on our strategy of embedding our Steel Cell technology into a variety of different power products and markets with the world's leading companies. We look forward to continuing to work with Honda to meet their high standards for performance quality and supply," he added.
Speaking to Proactive Investors at the beginning of the year, Caldwell said deals with such household names would get the company's name out there and “put us on the map”.
He explained that Ceres Power's strategy is a business-to-business focused one, with the aim of getting the company's highly flexible clean energy technology embedded in the kit of the leading global players, and as such Monday's deal should open a lot of doors for the company.
“People have understood the strategy, but this [deal] is a big proof point,” he said.
The company has been banging the drum about how good its technology is, but Caldwell conceded that there were cynics who wondered why, if the technology is so good, nobody else was adopting it.
Now with globally renowned power systems developers like Honda and Nissan onboard, Caldwell says the credibility meter suddenly goes up to 11.
“Japan is the most advanced fuel cell market in the world,” Caldwell asserted, and the collaboration with Honda was a particularly rigorous one, so the company could hardly hope for a better endorsement.
Caldwell was not at liberty to say what the company's plans were in terms of scaling up the manufacturing side but did express admiration for companies such as Apple, which have local partners “so you get it made locally where you need it”.
Shares in Ceres were up 0.7p, or 8.3%, to 9.23p.
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