Around GBP92m in combined government and industry funding has been committed to 49 projects as the UK automotive sector eyes “a prosperous green recovery post COVID-19 and a low-carbon future”.
The investment co-ordinated by the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) is across three streams which include vital support for the continuation of industry research and development during the pandemic, funding for low carbon technology, and a forward thinking approach for the industrialisation of a zero emission future.
Through the Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF), 31 projects will benefit from GBP17m of investment in feasibility studies to support the future of green manufacturing and economic recovery for the UK. The money will support commercially led research and development of manufacturing and product scale up for a future automotive supply chain.
Successful projects demonstrated how their study could de-risk scaling up innovative technology across the supply chain, remove the technical or commercial challenges with electric manufacturing in the UK and support the overall aim of the ATF.
Of the 31 winners under the ATF, 14 will look at the viability of scaling up product manufacturing, nine will assess the economic feasibility of large scale manufacturing facilities in the UK and eight will look at advanced manufacturing processes for electric vehicle technology.
GBP59m will be committed to six automotive projects through the APC16 competition, including battery development, recycling and technology for cars, motorcycles, buses and commercial vehicles.
The combined award with funding from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and matched by the industry partners, is aimed at providing support for technological growth, and will secure almost 3,000 jobs in the UK across research and manufacturing.
A further 12 projects have been selected as part of the government’s GBP16.5m Advanced Route to Market Demonstrator (ARMD) competition, to support UK industry continuation with R&D after the COVID-19 pandemic and further accelerate the transition to zero emission vehicles.
These small scale collaborative projects are being led by a range of OEMs and SMEs, focusing on product and process across energy storage and management, power electronics, electric machines, lightweighting and hydrogen.
Launched in June this year, the programme was conceived and launched within just two months, and the outputs will be displayed at the Cenex Low Carbon Vehicle Show in September 2021. Once successfully concluded, the 12-month projects will be used to seed future development programmes nationwide as well as overseas investment into the UK.
