Special Report: Shares in Talga were up more than 20 per cent yesterday after the company secured UK co-funding to support development of an e-axle for Bentley Motors.

The OCTOPUS project seeks to deliver a single unit e-axle solution to meet the luxury car manufacturer’s performance specifications through the use of optimised motor and power electronics technology and materials.

Talga Resources’ (ASX:TLG) role in the project is to develop and provide graphene materials for the high-performance electric motor windings to deliver an aluminium-based solution aimed at outperforming and ultimately replacing the copper windings currently used.

Achieving this goal is potentially lucrative given that every electric vehicle requires significant amounts of copper for their motor windings.

OCTOPUS is co-funded under the UK’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles and Innovate UK’s “IDP15: The Road to Zero Emission Vehicles” competition.

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Components developed under the project will be tested at sub-system and system levels for an integration route into future e-axle designs.

The e-axle concept combines electric motor, power electronics and transmission into a compact, cost-attractive electric drive solution for hybrid and battery only electric vehicle applications.

Copper windings in EV electric motors components Pic: Supplied

“We are delighted to engage in jointly developing Bentley Motors’ e-axle concept with our consortium partners and are honoured to have earned Innovate UK’s continued support,” managing director Mark Thompson said.

“The successful use of Talga graphene material to lend aluminium the properties required to outperform copper in electric motors would be a big advancement.

“For automotive manufacturers this could reduce vehicle weight and increase performance, safety and driving range while retaining sustainability and economics.”

Thompson added that lightweight, high-performance automotive components would complement the company’s lithium-ion battery anode products.

Talga aims to leverage its vertically integrated low-cost Vittangi anode project in Sweden to be the largest battery anode producer in Europe.

Vittangi has the potential to make big profits over its initial 22-year life, according to a May 2019 pre-feasibility study.

The company has already received approval to proceed with trial mining of up to 25,000 tonnes of graphite ore from the project.

Ore will be processed at an off-site toll milling facility into a concentrate before it is refined into Talnode-C, the company’s flagship graphite lithium-ion battery anode product.

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This story was developed in collaboration with Talga Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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