Jaguar Land Rover and Warwick's WMG aim for lighter, more popular electric cars

A project aims to help electric vehicles achieve their full potential by ‘lightweighting’ structures and encouraging their wider adoption.

The £18.7m Tucana project, led by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) with researchers from the Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick, will develop cost-effective, scaleable carbon-fibre ‘solutions’ to boost vehicle performance.

Experts at the WMG will manufacture carbon-fibre components, testing materials on processing equipment funded with £1.3m from the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.

“Lightweighting technology is a major part of improving the efficiency and desirability of next-generation low- and zero-emission capable vehicles,” said Ian Constance, chief executive of project funder the Advanced Propulsion Centre. Low-carbon technology will be “crucial” to the future of the UK’s automotive sector, he said.

The project will create 518 jobs, safeguard 50 more and train 308 people. It could help prevent 4.5m tonnes of CO₂ emissions between 2023 and 2032, the WMG said.

Despite the project’s stated aim of encouraging wider use of electric cars, JLR suggested the work would be useful for “premium” vehicles.

“Together with industry experts and academia we will collaboratively deliver innovative carbon-fibre solutions, achieving a performance that will further enhance driver experience for future premium electric vehicles,” said JLR chief engineer Gero Kempf.

The other partners in the project are Expert Tooling & Automation, Broetje-Automation UK, Toray International UK, CCP Gransden and Magna Exteriors (Banbury).