CARS will run on batteries powered by baking powder or sea salt within ten years, scientists claim.
They believe the bake to the future plan will replace the standard lithium battery.
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Sodium, found in salt from the oceans, and bicarbonate of soda is cheaper and easier to get hold of than the precious metal pulled from environmentally-damaging mines.
Oxford University’s Prof Bill David said a sodium battery could get an electric car 400 miles.
Sodium or bicarb molecules create an electric current to produce power. In a lithium-ion battery — also found in smartphones, laptops and power tools — the process is carried out by lithium molecules.
Prof David said: “We can make sodium batteries from salt but prefer to use baking powder.
“It’s not quite perfect in terms of performance so lithium will still be top of the pile, but there is more sodium around so we need both.
“By 2030, most electric cars will have a combination of lithium and sodium batteries in them.”
Prof David also told a science conference in the US that planes could be powered by ammonia.
The gas is used to make nitrogen fertiliser for farms.
