Public Funding for Dana TM4 UK Ltd

This project aims to improve the energy efficiency performance of an electric forklift vehicle thereby significantly reducing the vehicle’s emissions out compared with current best-in-class technology. To achieve this objective, partners will realise the industry’s first integrated hydraulic power unit for versatile integration to low voltage implementation drive for electric forklift vehicles. A technology demonstration unit will be simulated on an OEM vehicle’s drivetrain to identify the appropriate vehicle configurations and power requirements, prior to physical integration and evaluation. The consortium consists of Parker Hannifin (Hydraulics, Tier 1 Supplier), Ashwoods Electric Motors (IPM Motor, SME), UniCarriers (OEM), and the University of Bath (Academic). In addition to reducing the carbon footprint of electric forklift vehicles, project outputs have the potential to provide a significant improvement in productivity and ownership costs for the end user with a new integrated solution providing a step-change in cost, performance, efficiency, size and weight, thus replacing traditional less efficient motor drives within the commercial market.

The old order changeth, yielding place to new as Lord Tennyson once put it may not hold true anymore. It has been BSA Company's mission to ensure that past glory lives on to see a new even brighter day. This is the case with Britain's oldest and perhaps most cherished brand - BSA. Not only are we resurrecting this legend, but we are also doing so in an electric avatar thus ensuring that it is poised to be the best of what tomorrow can promise. For the first time in history, a true retro motorcycle will be powered by a battery powered electric engine. This motorcycle will have the best of both the worlds -- old charm (retro) and futuristic technology (innovation and green). This promises to be a motorcycling delight for the customer and with it, BSA will aim to lead UK's e mobility growth story and help support the government's stance on climate change. Change of this magnitude needs like-minded partners and we've found them in Ashwoods Motors (Dana), Hypermotive, WMG, Vital Auto and Microlise in the design and development of this new electric motorcycle. Additionally Delta Motorsport, RedLine and Ricardo are partners (subcontractors) who've played a vital role as well. With the new range of eBSA motorcycles, BSA Co. aims to put British motorcycling back on the global automotive map again.

The partners will develop a winding machine for aluminium wires. The winding machine will be developed and provide the first UK supply chain solution for manufacturing aluminium coils. Coil winding is a critical component of eMachine manufacture and is not provided by any UK manufacturer. UK based companies of eMachines have to purchase winding machines from overseas suppliers or have wound coils shipped to them. The partners well placed to provide guidance on the work and how to exploit the results of the project. Two of the partners, Ashwoods and Voltalogic, provide copper coil designs that will be redesigned to use aluminium wire. Hydro will provide coated aluminium wire with the preferred electrical conductivity and mechanical properties. Aspire will build their work on winding machines to provide a volume manufacturing solution. WMG will leverage their development work on volume e-Machine manufacture to guide the partners to the provision of a volume manufacturing solution. The advantages of aluminium coils are lower cost and lower weight compared with copper. The major disadvantage is the higher resistance, which decreases the efficiency of the e-Machine at low speeds. With the drive to higher speed e-Machines this disadvantage is becoming lower. The designs developed by Ashwoods and Voltalogic will target designs optimised for use with aluminium windings. The flexibility of material properties allowed by Hydro material development will provide a wider set of winding solutions. The successful completion of the project will provide a UK supply chain for the manufacture of e-Machine coil winding. Through this, it will enhance the UK's competitiveness to deliver e-Machine manufacturing technology. It will embed the design and manufacturing expertise for coil winding into the UK supply chain. The project will develop the reduction in weight of e-Machines by 15% without compromising performance by developing manufacturing processes for winding coils from alternative material. The project will deliver, for the first time, to the off-highway market a single source drive systems incorporating advanced IPM motor technology, radically lighter BUT equally as efficient as current IPM technology. The consortium partners are Ashwoods Electric Motors, Aspire Engineering, Voltalogic, WMG and Hydro. The technology and manufacturing capability will be developed by Ashwoods, Voltalogic and Aspire. WMG will validate the coil windings whilst Ashwoods will integrate this new technology into their products for benchmark testing. Ashwoods will exploit the outputs of this project through their own existing high-volume OEM relationships by the end of 2020

Ashwoods IPM Manufacturing System (AIMS)

Disruptive Integrated Electric Transmissions for Industrial Vehicles (DIET) will develop integrated electrified transmissions. The integrated electric transmissions consist of a combined motor and inverter integrated into one of three separate drive units: a hydraulic pump, a planetary gearbox or an axle. Generating a range of integrated e-pumps, e-axles and e-gearboxes. The project will deliver for the first time to the off highway market single source drive systems incorporating advanced IPM motor technology, that are radically smaller, lighter and more efficient than incumbent technology. The consortium is made up of Ashwoods Electric Motors, Curtis Instruments, Oerlikon Graziano, Aspire Engineering, Nexen Lift Trucks, The University of Bath and UniCarriers. The technology and production capability will be developed by Ashwoods, Curtis, Graziano and Aspire. Bath will validate the systems and Nexen and UniCarriers will integrate the technologies into their vehicles for real world validation. The Consortium will to exploit the outputs of this project through their own existing high volume OEM relationships or on their own vehicles by the end of 2019.

The IPM e-Cartridge project will develop the equivalent of a power tool ‘base unit’ with ‘multi-purpose adaptors’, but for low voltage off-highway traction and implementation drives. In this case the ‘base unit’ is a fully integrated Interior Permanent Magnet (IPM) motor & controlle cartridge and the ‘multi-puropse adaptors’ include hydraulic pumps, e-axles and gearboxes. The consortium is made up of Ashwoods Electric Motors, Curtis Instruments, Caterpillar, Niftylift and the University of Bath. The IPM e-Cartridge will be designed and developed by Ashwoods and Curtis. Bath University will then simulate the IPM e-Cartridege in different configurations and on different duty cycles for Niftylift and Caterpillar to identify the most effective drive train configurations. Finally the technology will be integrated to Niftylift and Caterpillar vehicles for testing and demonstration. The consortium have every expectation to be exploiting the outputs of this project in their own vehicles or through their existing high volume OEM relationships by the end of 2017.

Lightfoot is a brand owned and operated by Ashwoods Automotive Ltd. Lightfoot was developed as a commercial vehicle fleet technology, focussed purely on improving driver behaviour which also has positive impacts on accidents, safety, and fuel consumption. The commercial vehicle product has been proven to save 15% on fuel and reduce accident rates by up to 40%. Lightfoot has grown rapidly since its launch is January 2013 and now has over 3000 units on the road, major customers include Royal Mail, Autoglass and numerous Councils. This project will see Ashwoods evolve the existing Lightfoot Commercial Vehicle IP into a Consumer Product, suitable for all vehicle types and all drivers. The eventual output will be a product primarily for the flourishing Usage Based Insurance (UBI) market, which will be used as a tool not only to report back driving behaviour to insurance companies to enable them to price premiums, but also help consumers improve their driving in-real-time and ensure that bad driving is prevented at source rather than penalised by higher premiums. The unique combination of functionality and consumer engagement will enable a step-change in the Usage Based Insurance (UBI) model which currently only utilises standard 'black box' technology. The project will develop, build and test prototypes for a unique game-changing product within the vehicle telematics industry.

The project will design, model, develop and evaluate an industry first Low Cost Auxillary Power Unit (LowCAP) for Range Extended Electric Vehicles (REEVs) Tata Motors European Technical Centre (TMETC) plc, Ashwoods Automotive Ltd (Ashwoods), and University of Bath (Bath) combine to offer the set of skills to develop, evaluate and exploit the outputs in global mass market volumes. The project will result in UK intellectual property being technically and commercially tied into one of the lowest cost modern internal combustion engines (ICE) on the market which is built by Tata Motors and is anticipated to be exploited globally within the Tata Motors Group and beyond to the global OEM marketplace. The project will be focused from day one towards the low cost REEV market. The motors and controllers will be an exploitation of the low cost electric motor technology developed by Ashwoods through previous TSB funded projects involving Ashwoods and Bath. The project will see futher innovations low cost motor and inverter IP that will enable the development of a highly efficient, low cost, fully integrated, lightweight APU built from sustainable materials. Successful outputs will be sold and distributed by Tata Motors Group within their own vehicles and as a standard LowCAP unit to global OEMs.

The Ashwoods Axial Power Solution (AAPS) project will apply high levels of innovation and re-design to Ashwoods' existing Permanent Magnet Axial Flux motor IP so that the product will compete within the high volume, low cost induction motor market. The project will prototype a totally new approach to electric motor supply, costing and integration that will open up markets that otherwise are inaccessible to this type of motor technology.

The Complete Electric Propulsion System (CEPS) project has brought together a consortium that is not only capable of developing the most market acceptable product of its kind, but also is capable of exploiting it on a global scale. The consortium is made up of Ashwoods Automotive, GKN Driveline, Lotus and Bath University. The project is to develop a complete EV drive system that incorporates motor, controller and gearbox, cooling and connectors within a single cast plug and play package. The outputs will be low cost, with a range of power outputs and suitable for integration across multiple OEM vehicle platforms. Furthermore, CEPS will be designed for low voltage operation thus enabling lower cost, higher reliability battery and power electronics architecture. A Steering Group made up of the UK’s leading OEMs will influence design decisions to ensure maximum market potential for the CEPS.

A 12 month feasibility study project to determine the viability of a pneumatic hybrid application (Ashwoods Air Hybrid) for Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV’s) that would be CO2/Cost competitive with Hybrid / Electric applications. In an HEV/EV, an electric motor is powered by conventional, expensive battery cells. The Ashwoods Air Hybrid will feature a chassis mounted pneumatic motor, powered by the standard vehicle’s diesel engine (acting as an air compressor) and storing the compressed air in a underbody spun carbon fibre tank, thus providing a more lightweight cost effective and innovative hybrid solution. The study will produce findings and simulation data that will determine the feasibility of the Ashwoods Air Hybrid through extensive modelling and simulation. Ashwoods has over 2,000,000 miles of HEV real world data from Ashwoods vehicles that will be modelled to complete this comprehensive feasibility study. The modelling will take place at Bath University where, from a previous TSB project, Ashwoods has funded a Simulation & Modelling suite for hybrid technologies. Ashwoods specialise in developing emission reduction technology for LCV’s. They see the potential and have the capability to develop a pneumatic hybrid for this growing market sector. Ashwoods have initial prototype designs for a pneumatic motor and in order to develop this further it is important to understand the feasibility of the Air Hybrid application by establishing required motor efficiency levels, ICE intergration processes , thermodynamics and Co2 and commercial Cost / Benefit arguments.The Air Hybrid will be scalable to a whole host of LCV’s, because a larger vehicle has a larger standard engine, which provides greater air volumes (compression) for the pneumatic hybrid application.OEM’s and Industry see pneumatics as a potential step change and disruptive technology to the LCV market.

This project will design, model and develop a range of scalable electric motor/generators that have a low consistency of rare earth materials. The motors will see a minimum 50% reduction in magnet content and 30% weight reduction whilst retaining performance levels of best-in-class products. Development will be driven by a Motor Manufacturing Process which is designed to be modular and scalabale for low cost, high volume production of the innovative range of motors. The outputs of the project will be a range of high volume, highly efficient, low cost, low magnet, low weight electric machines suitable for the automotive sector (and other markets), all developed within a scalable manufacturing process that can be licensed to OEMs, Distributors and Industry. At project completion, the consortium will manufacture the motors in-house in the UK and license the process internationally.

The project is developing an Intelligent Hybrid Electric Power Unit (IHEPU) which will be suitable for range of EV and HEV drive packages. The key drivers of the project are market acceptability with all components combining performance, durability and value for money. The electric motors will be the lowest £ per kw available on the market; the BMS technology is scalable and licensable; and the control systems will be developed using over 2 million miles of real world HEV drive data. The IHEPU will be developed to a performance and cost that will give it significant desirability and market acceptance, both as an application and in individual component form to OEM and development companies throughout the world. The 3 main innovations to be developed for the project are: 1) A compact motor/generator with high specific peak power optimized for low cost integration into conventional drive-trains. 2) An advanced Lithium Phosphate Battery Management System enabling improvements in peak power transfer, energy efficiency and battery life. 3) Control systems generated by a HEV simulation and modelling suite based at Bath University and built through the project.