£25m government funding awarded to scale up electric vehicle technology

The Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) has announced winners sharing around £25m of government funding to assess if projects are ready for scale-up to support the growth of manufacturing and expansion of businesses in the UK automotive supply chain.

22 projects, comprising 35 companies and research organisations, will receive up to £2m each through the APC’s Scale-up Readiness Validation, SuRV, competition. The grants are awarded as part of the Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF), a programme created to support large-scale industrialisation.

Up to £1bn of funding is being invested through the ATF in developing a high-value end-to-end electrified automotive supply chain in the UK. The fund has already been used to develop the UK’s battery gigafactories and supply of critical materials through large capital financing.

SuRV was launched after insight showed there is often a need to validate products or processes to de-risk the making of key decisions for much greater investment.

Today’s announcement supports this ambition with recipients located around the UK, working on a range of processes and pilot lines that could grow to be large-scale manufacturing of technologies, including: power electronics and motors; batteries and fuel cells.

APC chief executive Ian Constance, after speaking to gathered industry innovators at the major trade conference Cenex Low Carbon Vehicle and Cenex Connected Automated Mobility show taking place 7-8 September, said “I am pleased the APC has announced £25m of funding to 22 projects from our Scale-up Readiness Validation competition.

“These successful projects will support the UK automotive industry, by increasing confidence in large-scale manufacturing investments and building electrified supply chains.

“It is vital in the transition to net zero that the automotive sector seizes the opportunity to grow the industry, create or safeguard jobs and build on the expertise anchored here in the UK.”

As set out in the Net Zero Strategy, the UK Government has committed to achieve this transformation in the automotive industry, driven by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Automotive Transformation Fund.

APC automotive transformation director Julian Hetherington added: “I am proud of the role the Automotive Transformation Fund is playing in unlocking opportunities for investment, and the projects chosen here all have real potential to scale-up to something significant.”

By Matthew Neville – Correspondent, Bdaily

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