• McMurtry Automotive and Molicel have signed a strategic technical partnership designed to demonstrate and improve current and future generations of Molicel power-optimised battery cells.
• Molicel is involved in a number of key projects with McMurtry Automotive, advancing new cell implementation.
• Molicel engineers hold core competencies in material research, cell design and advanced manufacturing along with testing capability. Together, with McMurtry’s application specific knowledge, future generations of cells will be delivered with increased performance.
• The McMurtry Spéirling will be a high speed test bed for new Molicel technology. It is an electric track car with immense lap time capability.  It does 0-60mph in under 1.5 secs, with unique fan powered downforce of over 2000kg, which is more than double its own weight. The carbon fibre all-electric track car has just claimed the outright record at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and won the event.  Molicel representatives from Taiwan and Canada were at Goodwood to meet interested parties throughout the weekend and support the team.
• Molicel is recognised as the first choice for world leading manufacturers in applications such as sports cars, hypercars, motorcycle, VTOL, aerospace and heavy duty tools.

Taipei, Taiwan; Gloucestershire, UK- McMurtry Automotive and Molicel have today announced their strategic technical partnership.

The two companies will introduce new cell technologies using the McMurtry Spéirling as a high speed test bed.  The high power track car running at over 150mph, combined with rapid charge and discharge cycles, is a natural fit to accelerate cell technology and application knowledge.

The two companies’ technologies are complementary.  Molicel delivers niche, advanced, energy dense, high charge and discharge rate cells in applications such as sports car, motorcycle, VTOL, aerospace and heavy duty tools.  McMurtry Automotive is industry leading in overall battery design and cell integration techniques with proprietary technology in thermal management, busbar design, structural integrity, safety and overall pack geometry, including pending IP protection.  The combination of the two is a natural fit for achieving high performance in an electric vehicle and the result is arguably the most power dense and energy dense battery in the market.

When setting out to deliver a ground breaking project – the ultra compact, sub one tonne, 1000 bhp per tonne Spéirling track car – McMurtry engineers found industry leading performance in power density and C-rate capability when assessing Molicel products.  Molicel’s cells have since been powering the McMurtry Sperling which first debuted at Goodwood Festival of Speed 2021 and has just set the all time record there in 2022.

Thomas Yates, Director: “The battery pack is a defining element of our unique car concept.  The cell capability within that has a first order effect on the mass and packaging volume of the entire car, plus the obvious power output to the drive motors.  Therefore, in the heart of our car, we are leaving no stone unturned to deliver a powerdense, compact and lightweight battery.  The Molicel cells have delivered a competitive advantage in achieving these aims and they have been powered the novel performance that the world that just witnessed at Goodwood.   I’m also looking forward to integrating the next generation of Molicel cells into our future products.”

The battery pack is engineered and built by the McMurtry team in the UK using a P26A cylindrical lithium ion Molicel product to achieve a 60 kWh capacity.

The key requirements for the cells are high power, low impedance and fast charge/discharge.

One benefit of a low impedance cell is a comparatively small temperature increase during high current drain therefore thermal design at pack system level can be simplified, making the resulting battery pack smaller and lighter.

Molicel’s future developments include an even higher power cell capable of delivering 5C fast charge (6 mins = charge up 50% capacity).   These could feature in future McMurtry and customer applications.