Two projects to help develop low carbon vehicles technologies have been awarded £6m funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
ELEVATE (ELEctrochemical Vehicle Advanced Technology) will help develop better materials for energy storage devices and improve integration between devices, vehicles and power grids.
The other project, Ultra Efficient Engines and Fuels, will investigate how to improve the operation of internal combustion engines by as much as one third efficiency.
Professor Philip Nelson, EPSRC’s chief executive, said: ‘The UK’s research base and its universities are a fantastic source of new ideas and refinements from which industry can draw to grow and innovate. Low carbon vehicles are, without doubt, an inevitable and very necessary next step for the automotive industries.
‘The leading research that EPSRC supports will help to make the mass use and production of these vehicles a reality more quickly.’
Cities minister Greg Clark said the projects would help the UK take steps towards producing low carbon vehicles on mass scale.