The UK government and UK automotive industry are jointly funding four projects intended to significantly advance low carbon emission vehicle technologies, it was announced on Wednesday. The total funding comes to £91.7-million (about R1.88-billion), and is being awarded through the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), a not-for-profit organisation that is a public-private partnership.

“By investing tens of millions in the technology needed to decarbonise our roads, not only are we working to end our contribution to climate change, but also ensuring our automotive sector has a competitive future that will secure thousands of highly-skilled jobs,” affirmed UK Investment Minister (equivalent to Deputy Minister in South Africa) Lord Grimstone. “Seizing the opportunities that arise from the global green automotive revolution is central to our plans to build back greener, and these winning projects will help make the widespread application and adoption of cutting-edge, clean automotive technology a reality.”

The four projects being funded are known as BMW-UK-BEV, Project Brunel, Project Celeritas, and REEcorner. All the projects are based in England.

BMW-UK-BEV, based at Oxford, is receiving £26.2-million to develop an electric battery for motor vehicles that will provide a similar driving range to that provided by internal combustion engines. Birmingham-based Project Celeritas, which gets £9.7-million, is also concerned with electric batteries, but its focus is on ultra-fast recharging, to provide both electric and fuel cell hybrid vehicles with batteries that can be recharged in as short a time as 12 minutes.

The Brunel project, located at Darlington, aims to develop a “novel” hydrogen-fuelled engine, which would produce zero carbon emissions and so contribute to the decarbonisation of heavy goods vehicles. It gets £14.6-million.

The biggest single award, of £41.2-million, goes to Nuneaton-based REEcorner. This project seeks to radically redesign light and medium electric commercial vehicles, by means of relocating steering, breaking, suspension and powertrain systems into the vehicle wheel arches. This will provide vehicle layout design flexibility, increase cargo volume and increase autonomous capability.

“These projects tackle some really important challenges in the journey to net-zero road transport,” pointed out APC CEO Ian Constance. “They address range anxiety and cost, which can be a barrier to people making the switch to electric vehicles and they also provide potential solutions to the challenge of how we decarbonise public transport and the movement of goods. By investing in this innovation, we’re taking these technologies closer to the point where they are commercially viable, which will strengthen the UK’s automotive supply chain, safeguard or create jobs and reduce harmful greenhouse emissions.”