The APC showcases the UK’s low carbon future at LCV 2015
The Advanced Propulsion Centre team hosted Anna Soubry MP, Minister of State for Small Business, Innovation and Skills at LCV2015, as part of a visit to the UK’s leading low carbon vehicle event, and met several of the APC’s project partners including Ford, GKN, Jaguar Land Rover and Intelligent Energy. Tony Pixton introduced the Minister to the new Chief Executive of the APC Ian Constance as part of a tour of the stand which featured technology from the Technology Developer Accelerator Programme projects AIE and Dearman. Michael Ayres, Deputy Chief Executive of Dearman (below left) explained how the ‘cool engine’ works and has been developed with support from the APC and Innovate UK. Anna Soubry then left the stand to make the keynote address to open LCV2015 taking a copy of the APC’s ‘Building the Propulsion Nation‘ report with her.
Throughout LCV 2015 Tony Pixton, Garry Wilson, Jon Beasley, and Adrian Vinsome all chaired seminars during the two days at Millbrook. Garry Wilson chaired the afternoon session on Day 1 ‘Building the Propulsion Nation : UK Capabilities Development’ exploring the APC’s Hub and Spoke network resources in further detail. The seminar included presentations from the leads of each of the first three APC Spokes including Professor David Greenwood (Electrical Energy Storage Spoke, University of Warwick), Professor Steve Rothberg (Digital Engineering and Test Spoke) and Professor Mark Johnson (Power Electronics Spoke, University of Nottingham). Dr Rupert Lewis, Head of Automotive – Department for Business Innovation and Skills, talked about the resources available through government along with Dick Elsy, Chief Executive of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult spoke in the seminar.
The Advanced Propulsion Centre team were kept busy at LCV 2015 with hundreds of attendees visiting the APC stand over the two days. The team answered questions on the APC grant funding competitions, existing APC projects, roadmaps, among other subjects. The majority APC stand was built using furnishing from the National Propulsion Showcase based at the APC hub in Warwick which are designed explain the story and resources available through the APC.
Every LCV2015 was given a copy of the Autocar supplement ‘Low Carbon Vehicles – The UKs Innovation Success Story’ which was also included in every copy of this week’s Autocar magazine on newsstands and sent around the world to Autocar’s international subscribers. The supplement tells the story of the UK’s unique innovation support network for low carbon technology, with features emerging and current technologies.
Networking is a key feature of the LCV event and the 2015 Low Carbon Champions Awards are presented during a dinner at the end of the first day. The event was hosted by Low CVP with more than 380 industry representatives and low carbon transport stakeholders. The event which was compared by low carbon champion and TV personality Robert Llewellyn to celebrate achievement and innovation in low carbon road transport. The ceremony featured nine awards including the 2015 Award for Low Carbon Innovation by an SME which was sponsored by the APC. Tony Pixton took to the stage to present Avid Technology and Wirth Research as joint winners of the award.