Malaysia wants to launch serial production of battery cells in the 18650 format for electric vehicles and stationary applications. A feasibility study is currently being prepared and should be completed within three months.
The analysis will be carried out by the Malaysia Automotive Robotics and IoT Institute (MARii) together with a non-named listed local company that will subsequently manufacture the cells. Malaysia is getting a lot of sun, so it makes sense to use stationary batteries as energy storage, which do not yet exist locally in this form, they say. Especially in remote rural areas that are not connected to the power grid and whose connection would cost a lot of money, lithium-ion-based storage systems could work effectively. Apart from that, the Southeast Asian country would stand to profit from the imminent electric vehicle boom.
As far as the timetable is concerned, the initiators expect production to start before the end of the year. While one already has an electrolyte supplier in hand and the anode can be taken “off the shelf”, cathode production is the real challenge. A production line would have to be set up for this, which would probably take months.
