Loughborough-based Intelligent Energy (www.intelligent-energy.com) is to lead a European research programme that will look at the commercialisation of fuel cells for the car industry.

Known as Digiman, the programme is backed by the EU Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking. Other members of the consortium are Freudenberg Performance Materials, WMG at the University of Warwick and Toyota Motor Europe.

Richard Peart, head of manufacturing at Intelligent Energy, said: “Hydrogen fuel-cell-powered vehicles are available now, but to continue to drive customer adoption, we need to ensure that future fuel-cell stacks are robustly industrialised and remain cost-competitive.”

Group chief executive Martin Bloom said: “As the adoption of hydrogen technologies continues to gather pace, Intelligent Energy is ideally placed to be the technical lead on this programme.”