New low emission vehicle systems: apply for business funding

15 Sep 2016 11:33 AM

Businesses can apply for a share of up to £24 million to develop new vehicle technologies that deliver significant reductions in emissions.

The Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV), the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Innovate UK are to invest up to £24 million in business projects to develop new vehicle technologies that deliver low emissions.

We are particularly looking for projects that develop low-cost, highly integrated systems that enable zero emission journeys.

Funding is available for three types of project:

• feasibility studies into technology that can achieve significant emissions savings in road vehicles
• proof of concept for technologies that can achieve significant emissions savings in road vehicles
• collaborative research and development on projects that can achieve significant emissions savings in road vehicles and can produce results within 1 year

Projects are expected to take an integrated systems approach to reducing emissions and result in lower emissions at the vehicle level. In particular, we are looking for projects that enable zero emission journeys.

Work must focus on one or more of the following strategic technologies:

• electric machines and power electronics
• energy storage and energy management
• lightweight vehicle and powertrain structures
• thermal propulsion
• highly disruptive technologies that would significantly speed up the reduction of CO2e and other emissions

Competition information

• the competition opens on 5 September 2016, and the deadline for registration is at noon on 19 October 2016
• projects must be led by a business working in collaboration with at least one other organisation
• up to £4 million is available for feasibility projects. We expect these projects to have total costs of between £200,000 and £500,000 and to last up to a year
• up to £15 million is available for proof of concept projects. We expect these projects to have total costs of between £2 million and £4 million and to last between 18 months and three years
• up to £5 million is available for fast-track collaborative R&D. We expect these projects to have total costs of between £500,000 and £1.5 million and to last up to 1 year
• businesses could receive up to 70% of their costs
• a briefing event will be held on 20 September 2016