On a visit to Ford’s plant in Dunton, Essex, last week, Business Secretary Vince Cable announced £133 million of new investment for four advanced manufacturing projects.
Consortia led by Ford, GKN, Cummins and JCB have all received funding for projects to improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.
The first project will see Ford and its partners receive a £13.1 million grant for their £100 million programme to upgrade the award-winning EcoBoost engine. This will accelerate the introduction of advanced low-carbon technologies to deliver improved fuel efficiency and lower emissions.
Meanwhile, GKN Land Systems and its partners will receive a £7.5 million grant as part of a £16 million project to apply F1 technology from Williams for use in buses. The Gyrodrive system is designed to save the braking energy of a bus as it slows for a stop and use it to accelerate the bus back up to speed.
By avoiding ‘wasting’ the energy every time a bus stops, the system will deliver estimated fuel savings of 25%.
The third consortium to receive funding is headed by Cummins, which will invest £4.9 million to deliver significant reductions in carbon emissions from bus engines through the development of new stop/start diesel-engine technology.
The final project to benefit from Government funding is JCB and its partner Flybrid, which will receive a £3.3 million grant as part of a £7.3 million project to apply F1 technology for use in diggers.
This will reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, resulting in a reduced ‘carbon footprint’ for construction projects. On average, the carbon emissions of a single 20-tonne excavator are predicted to be cut by 16 tonnes per year.
Mr Cable said: “The next generation of cars, buses and diggers will be powered by radically different technologies, and I want them to be developed here in Britain. To capitalise on the success of our motor industry, these projects will be the first of many to receive funding from the new £1 billion Advanced Propulsion Centre, which we set up to turn technologies into products.”