The UK’s National Automotive Innovation Centre, one of Europe’s largest automotive research and development centres, has been officially opened by the Prince of Wales.
Based at the University of Warwick, in Coventry, The £150m National Automotive Innovation Centre, is home to researchers, engineers and designers from Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors and WMG and was established to provide a collaborative environment for UK engineers to help shape the future of the global automotive industry.
The 33,000m² centre includes cutting-edge workshops, laboratories, virtual engineering suites and advanced powertrain facilities.
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At the centre’s official opening Jaguar Land Rover demonstrated its latest advanced autonomous research concept vehicle as the next stage of its Destination Zero mission, which aims to make societies safer and healthier, and the environment cleaner. Tata Motors and WMG showcased sustainable future mobility projects, including their most recent electrified and autonomous vehicles.
The centre also offers a range of education programmes, through which NAIC students and apprentices can work alongside experts and leaders in their fields. All three partners are developing curricula which support the emerging technologies and mobility solutions.
The concept for the NAIC was brought to life by the late Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, founder of WMG, and the building it is located in is named in his honour.
Professor David Mullins, Interim Head of WMG, commented: “The late Professor Lord Bhattacharyya’s vision was for future generations of designers, researchers and engineers to be inspired to innovate through collaborative research projects with manufacturers, suppliers and academia at the National Automotive Innovation Centre.”
Could you convert my Freelander TD4 05 reg., to run on batteries please.
Why could it not be done with all the fuel tank and engine space?
The cost of the batteries and motors would outweigh the value of the car.
The environmental cost of manufacturing them would outweigh the savings from fossil fuel reduction, especially over the lifetime of an already-aging car.
The weight of the batteries would reduce the performance of your car which wasn’t designed with them in mind. The suspension would also suffer and the range would be poor.
There are many reasons why the only worthwhile electrification is for new vehicles – in fact, buying a second hand petrol vehicle and driving it until it dies is better for the environment than buying a new electric car.
Let’s hope they really are open for business, and not just for PR projects. When approached for a discussion on an innovative zero-carbon renewable transport mode to defeat UK congestion, Professor Mullins told me that his National Automotive Innovation Centre staff were too busy with programmes of work for their (mainly overseas) sponsors to spare the time even to read a synopsis. OK I suppose, as they have a business to run, but not so good if they get funding from the UK public.
The first comment highlights the elephant in the room with regards to the electric car take up. What is often forgotten when talking about the electric vehicle take up and government limits on new car sales is the number of vehicles already on the road, and that it will take many years for the number of electric vehicles to get to 50% of the vehicle fleet. What is urgently required is a simple, low cost way of converting an existing petrol or diesel to be a hybrid vehicle, using electric power for low speed inner city use while using petrol for towing or heavy duty applications. There are many ways that this can be done, using existing in hub wheel, or new technology to power the wheel or wheels of a converted vehicle. When this happens you will see the vested interests really go to town as it will effect their market share.
There are several converters in business already, usually for the conversion of beloved classics but there is no reason that they could not complete a conversion on a newer vehicle. I would post a link but I guess it would breach the advertising rules.