Project works on intelligent energy management for cars

It will be based on optimising demand, integration of renewables and effective heat distribution, among other initiatives.

‘Europe produces about 15 million cars a year, which surprisingly is about 25 per cent of the world’s total production,’ said Dr Richard Bateman from UK project partner Brunel University. ‘In terms of total industrial energy consumption it’s only about 1.2 per cent which doesn’t sound much, but you scale that up and it’s a huge amount each year, so if we could make a 10 per cent impact on that, it’s a big saving in energy and CO₂.’

The ’EuroEnergest’ Framework 7 programme also involves SEAT, Enertika, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and Comfort Consulting.

‘If you look at the general figures that are published, something like 70 per cent of the energy is used in the paintshop, then 20 per cent is used in the metal-bashing part, the casting and forging, and actually the assembly part, which we all have as the picture in our heads of what car production is, with robots and everything, that’s only 10 per cent,’ Bateman said.