Five partnerships have won the 2012 Niche Vehicle R&D competition and will share up to £900,000 of grant funding.
The winning projects are: Lightweight Titanium Structures (Caged Laser Engineering, with Ariel and Reynolds Technology); 4-Speed Electric Minibus (Vocis, Zytek Automotive and the University of Surrey); Morgan Plus E2 (Morgan Motor Company, again with Zytek Automotive and Potenza Technology); EV Blue (RDM Automotive with Potenza Technology and WCT Solutions and Training); and Gearbox Prototyping Study (Agility Global, Turbo Technics and Gibbs Gears).
Backed by the Technology Strategy Board and OLEV (the Office for Low Emission Vehicles), the Niche Vehicle Network – which launched the competition – is aimed at stimulating R&D collaboration in the niche vehicle sector.
The Lightweight Titanium Structures project aims to investigate the viability of adopting titanium tube as a cost effective raw material for spaceframe assemblies for low volume and small series production lightweight vehicles.
4-Speed Electric Minibus will build a demonstrator vehicle for the Vocis 4 Speed dual motor transmission – known as 'eDCT' (electric Dual Clutch-less Transmission).
EV Blue is to develop a working electric vehicle demonstrator with a novel driver control interface and electrical architecture, based on the Apple iPad.
"Our R&D programme complements the funding available from OLEV and the Technology Strategy Board Low Carbon Vehicles Innovation Platform, and enables us to continue to support niche companies across the UK," states Rob Anderson, programme manager for the Niche Vehicle Network.
