New opportunities for lightweighting in partnership with the APC

The scope of the APC’s activity supports the development and production of low carbon propulsion technology in the UK and has now been extended to cover lightweighting projects in both vehicle structures as well as powertrain structures. The change, which has been confirmed by the Automotive Council, provides opportunities for new projects to be considered for support within the area of strategic technology called ‘Lightweight Vehicle and Powertrain Structures‘.

The APC made its first grant funding offer in April 2014, and is now providing resources for collaborative projects worth more than £174 million and securing or creating 4,500 jobs in the UK, all covered by four of the five Strategic Technologies identified by the Automotive Council as key opportunities for the UK, and included within the 2013 Industrial Strategy for the UK.  The fifth technology ‘Intelligent Mobility’ is covered by the Transport Systems Catapult.

The change to the scope enables the APC to apply its resources to a wider group of projects and reflects the evolution of the UK’s powertrain capability to embrace opportunities for lightweighting across whole vehicle structures.

In 2013 the Tony Harper, Head of Research at Jaguar Land Rover led the development of a roadmap for the Automotive Council which set out a consensus view of the way forward for Lightweight Vehicle and Powertrain Structures. You can see a video of the executive summary of this report which was launched at the CENEX – Low Carbon Vehicle Show LCV in September 2013, which identified the UK opportunities in this area and led to the creation of the APC.

The fourth APC funding competition (APC4) offering collaborative consortia the opportunity to have access to APC resources closed on 1st July 2015 and the results will be announced in Autumn 2015. The next funding competition (APC5) will open during November 2015, but urgent applications can be considered through an ‘exceptional process’.