Ilika PLC (AIM:IKA, OTCQX:ILIKF) has started a nine-month series of manufacturing equipment trials as part of the industrialisation plan for its Goliath electric vehicle battery cells.
UK government will back the trials through the Automotive Transformation Fund (APC), which will see equipment vendors using representative volume manufacturing gear designed to validate Ilika's scale-up plan.
Ilika expects to receive a £175,000 grant for the project, code-named STEP.
"STEP is a crucial part of Ilika's industrialisation journey and provides a great opportunity for Ilika to work with UK-based equipment vendors in these trials - to both further Ilika's ambitions to scale its technology and to develop the all-important SSB supply chain," Graeme Purdy, Ilika chief executive, said.
STEP follows two successful APC-funded industrialisation projects, Ilika said in a statement Wednesday.
One, SOLSTICE, concluded there would be no cost or technical barriers to scaling up its Goliath SSB tech for EVs, as well as designing a plan for a “mega-scale manufacturing facility.”
The ongoing BUS100 project, which is a collaboration between Ilika and The UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC), is to determine the economic feasibility of placing a 100-megawatt hour SSB line at UKBIC to allow Goliath’s EV batteries to be produced at a vast scale.
Ilika said it intends to continue scaling up production with cell manufacturing partners via joint ventures or licensing.