Prosperity Partnerships

There is a growing demand for low carbon vehicles to reduce the transport sector's environmental impact and respond to the pressure of decarbonisation. Over the last 5 years, battery costs and performance have improved significantly which has subsequently improved the viability of electric and hybrid vehicles. By taking a whole-systems approach to electrification for efficiency, this collaborative research programme will focus on gaining underpinning knowledge on battery performance and degradation, new devices and packaging for power electronic, design of electric motors that include manufacturing effects and addressing the challenges that electric drives for torque transmission impose on surfaces, substrates and lubricants to optimise materials for drives. This research will address the fundamental research challenges to accelerate electrification of vehicles in the UK. It will deliver new scientific insights to drive forward discovery and innovation in electric and hybrid vehicles. The knowledge generated by this research programme will provide a route to maintain and grow jobs as low emission vehicles replace existing vehicles and will have impacts across the supply chain.

Industrial benefits
The proposed Prosperity Partnership will drive discovery and innovation in electric and hybrid vehicles using challenges co-created by University of Warwick and Jaguar Land Rover. The Partnership will provide scientific research to underpin the development-driven research, accelerating the pace of innovation in the company. The research will also explore new research questions with the potential to deliver step-changes in the electrification of vehicles. As a key UK manufacturing company, Jaguar Land Rover can exploit the impact of their innovations across their extensive supply chain.

Social Benefits
The research outputs from this project will enable Warwick to expand its energy storage and advanced propulsion research portfolio that is rooted in WMG, contributing to research to accelerate emissions and CO2 reduction in vehicles and training skilled researchers to address the skills gap in these growing areas.. Further social benefits arise from communication of the electric vehicle technologies and their underpinning science through the public engagement/outreach activities delivered as part of this Prosperity Partnership. These activities will be focused on STEM subjects via Jaguar Land Rover's Inspiring Tomorrow's Engineers' programme that will engage with 2 million young people by 2020, nurturing talent for our business and the wider automotive industry. The two WMG Academies (14-19 years) nurturing the future generation of engineers and scientists will also benefit. Through a dedicated website and media channels there will be opportunities to raise the general public's awareness of low carbon vehicles and the role they play in reducing environmental impact.

Environmental benefits
By improving performance and emissions this research programme will help meet EU targets within the Climate and Energy Package (2014), which includes a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels and a 20% improvement in the EU's energy efficiency. The UK strategy for ultra-low emission vehicles states the 'vision is that by 2050 almost every car and van in the UK will be an ultra-low emission vehicles; Jaguar Land Rover have reduced average tailpipe CO2 emissions across its European fleet by 32% since 2007 and by 2020 will offer customers the option of electrification on half of all its new models.