Rare Earth Elements (REEs) are essential for the Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (REPMs), which are required for e-motors and additional components. REE supply is volatile and can disrupt commercial ecosystems. The UK has limited natural REE resources but does boast successful industries reliant on REEs. The only realistic route for an insulated, sustainable, UK REPM supply chain is to develop robust recycling technology, and the integrated working practises in this project will allow it to thrive. Recyclers, mid-stream manufacturers, and OEMs will collaborate to optimise REE resources and maximise the UK e-motor opportunity and complimentary opportunities.

Ionic Technologies, Less Common Metals (LCM) and Ford are seeking to establish a demonstration circular supply chain for Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in the UK, by utilising innovative technologies to create high specification magnets containing 100% recycled REEs for use in Electrical Vehicles (EVs). Production of critical minerals of all kinds is expected to rise sharply, some as much as 500% by 2040\. Given the current dependency on imports of REEs into the UK, it will be vital for recycling of REEs to become mainstream and to integrate REE recycling into the UK REE supply chain. Ionic Technologies have demonstrated patented technology at the Demonstration Plant in Belfast, in order to produce high purity REEs at a rate of 10 tonnes per annum. At 99.5% purity or higher, the REEs produced are suitable for use in high specification magnets for EVs and other technology contributing towards the UK's NetZero ambitions. LCM is a world leader in the manufacture and supply of complex alloy systems and metals including those based on REEs. LCM produces alloys made from REEs, which are supplied to permanent magnet production companies worldwide. As there is no producer of sintered Rare Earth Permanent Magnets (REPMs) for the automotive industry in the UK, a sub-contract magnet producer will be used to manufacture multiple magnet types which meet Ford's specifications. Ford currently has 4 drive production facilities globally; the majority of EU production will come from its UK based Halewood facility which is planning to produce close to half a million units per annum by 2026\. To support production at this facility there will be a requirement for over 600 tonnes of magnet raw material per annum. Ford will test and analyse the performance of magnets provided through the project, to prove the efficacy of high specification magnets containing REEs of recycled origin. Inevitably, each stage of the process from REE recycling to EV testing will generate waste (swarf), including the magnets used in Ford's EV motors. Ionic technologies will recycle this material, thus completing a totally circular REE supply chain within the UK. In summary, this project seeks to build a demonstration supply chain of recycled REEs in the UK, utilising industry leading technology at each stage of magnet manufacture and testing.

Currently, UK EV drive manufacturing uses Laser welding as a 'go-to' high-productivity joining process for copper and aluminium components. However, laser welding has shown many short comings, owing to the fundamental limitation of adsorption of laser energy into copper material, and thus greatly complicating the manufacturing processes of PEMD devices. This has encouraged Ford to explore alternative processes. Internal Ford evaluation and lab-based tests have shown that replacing laser welding with electron beam welding greatly impacts production efficiency and quality of the product. Lab-based proof of concepts has demonstrated that electron beam welding overcomes most issues associated with laser welding process. The electron beam welding process is efficient without needing pre-welding preparation, including trimming the parts before joining occurs. This eliminates scrap produced during the welding process. This process also doesn't require shielding gas and operates in a controlled vacuum machine instead of the atmospheric environment therefore has a significantly less negative impact on the environment. Cambridge Vacuum Engineering has joined Ford on the EB-eDrive project to automate and scale up the electron beam process to an industrial scale which requires gathering comprehensive data and creating a robust operational and quality assessment process. This project will develop and establish a world-class, UK-based, welding supply chain, ensuring continued UK leadership in Driving the Electric Revolution.

Hydrogen fuel cell propulsion is key in supporting UK Net Zero transport policies, as demonstrated by the Automotive Council roadmaps. Fuel-cell Commercial Vehicle Generation 2.0 (FCVGen2.0) is a Ford-led industrial research project that pilots the introduction of Fuel Cell Hybrid Electric Vehicles (FCHEV) to the Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) sector, aiming to advance the UK capability for fuel-cell powertrain development and vehicle integration, and to validate the business case with a joined-up approach between OEM, energy company, supply chain, and fleet operator. Building on the success of the ARMD FCVGen1.0 project, which delivered the first Ford Transit FCHEV vehicle in Europe, this project aims to design, develop, and build a fleet of 9 fuel-cell Transits, that will benefit from the latest advances in fuel-cell supply chain technology. 8 of the vehicles will be piloted by strategic fleet operators and customers for six months, gathering subjective and objective feedback to assess their suitability for wider deployment. The fleet trial data will be used to inform a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis tailored to the specific segment, and to provide insights into the required attributes of a possible future product and hydrogen infrastructure. Even with the current high pace of advancement in battery technology, it is unlikely in coming years, that Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) will fulfil those LCV use-cases that require high daily energy, range, payload or have limited opportunities for charging. FCHEV is a zero-emissions alternative that can address this gap. Competitor FCHEVs have not demonstrated the anticipated benefits in range and payload that can be achieved with a fuel-cell powertrain. This project aims to employ a high-power fuel cell stack, in conjunction with significant hydrogen storage capability to achieve a vehicle specification that is a direct replacement for the equivalent diesel or gasoline LCV. The cost and packaging of the hydrogen storage system is critical in delivering the attributes required of a commercial vehicle, such as payload and loading space. The project will include a dedicated workstream on hydrogen storage, aiming to design and develop state of the art hydrogen pressure vessel(s), optimising for capacity, cost, and weight. The pressure vessel(s) will be built in the UK, and the design potentially adapted for volume manufacturing. A separate workstream will examine efficient and viable recycling methodologies at end of life, for the high value carbon composites used for pressure vessel reinforcement, and possibilities to re-introduce into the supply chain.

Composite materials have been used for decades and have found their way into almost every industrial sector, mainly due to their outstanding material properties and lightweight benefits. Today, 2.5 million tonnes of composite material are used globally in the renewable energy sector. It is estimated that there are 12-15 tonnes of glass fibre reinforced plastic per MW of power. Glass fibre reinforced plastic (GRP) represents the majority of the £54.5billion global market for composites. Over one million tonnes are produced annually in Europe alone, with the construction, infrastructure and transport sectors accounting for almost 70% of that figure. The growing use of glass fibres has increased concern about their waste disposal methods. Tonnes of composite waste containing valuable glass fibres have been accumulating every year from various applications. It is imperative that composite wastes are recycled using a cost-effective methodology with minimal environmental impact. The wind energy sector alone is expected to decommission 40,000 to 60,000 tonnes of composite materials in the next two years. The EMPHASIZING project will address the challenge of recycling composite structures that are currently landfilled or incinerated and will develop a viable value chain to exploit the resulting recyclates. Wind turbine blades, automotive and marine parts will be considered, processed and analysed, and the relevant "roadmaps" will be developed and assessed. The consortium will demonstrate the circular economy concept by fabricating relevant automotive end-products made from upcycled glass fibre materials. The methodology proposed by the consortium introduces a technical step change from state-of-the-art processes such as pyrolysis and solvolysis. This, in turn, allows for a commercial innovation; the high-yield reclamation of high-quality, clean, reusable fibres, free from residues and with retained length, properties almost to virgin materials. Composites UK's Vision and Roadmap for Sustainable Composites depicts a future scenario where by 2040 composites to be a 'go to' material in mobility. This includes the transition through another generation of vehicles (c 2030) where composite use has increased, to replace metallic parts, allowing for the 2040 generation where composite materials are widespread as standard materials. The EMPHASIZING solution impact includes the introduction of low-cost high-quality, high yield reclaimed fibres into production, thus supporting the vision for the industry at 2030 and beyond.

In the drive to Net Zero the use of Hydrogen can play an important role in future UK transport. Whilst the majority of work looking at using hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles has been focused on fuel cell there is the potential to use hydrogen as fuel within a conventional internal combustion engine as a means of ensuring rapid market penetration of a ZEV in the LCV market. There is a large infrastructure in the UK dedicated to producing, servicing and recycling Internal Combustion Engines. It would be of significant benefit to the UK if these facilities could be repurposed to produce net zero internal combustion engines powered by hydrogen. However, there are significant hydrogen infrastructure, engine and vehicle technical challenges which would also need to be overcome before this could become reality. This project cannot address all these issues but is targeting coming up with cost effective optimised solutions to some of the fundamental issues associated with adapting an internal combustion engine to run on Hydrogen and be a zero emission engine. The project brings together a consortium of academic institutions, small and medium enterprises, large engineering consultancies, tier 1 part suppliers and a large OEM who specialises in the manufacture of light commercial vehicles. The focus of the project will be demonstrating that a Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine can be a viable alternative to the existing diesel powertrain for use in a Light Commercial Vehicle. The project will run in two phases, the first building on Brunel University and Mahle Powertrain's experience in running hydrogen powered engines to define the likely challenges and issues associated with running Hydrogen in an Internal Combustion Engine. The data generated by Brunel University will be used by Oxford Brookes University to develop a CAE tool set which will allow the consortium to simulate in cylinder hydrogen combustion and emissions. In Phase 2 using the tools and knowledge developed in Phase 1 the consortium will then design and manufacture several options for of single cylinder engine which will then be tested at Brunel. It is hoped that these engines will address the majority of issues associated with Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engines. It is hoped that this project will form the basis of a larger project to put the multi cylinder hydrogen powered combustion engine into production.

eSHADOW ~ Electrified Structural Hybrid Automotive Developments for Optimised Weight eSHADOW is a Ford led collaborative industry research project that aims to focus on the development of hybrid material structural engineering tools to promote lightweight design and verification for Product Development processes. The research will be conducted with a total of three UK industry based partners and an academic partner, who will develop key design tools to allow UK companies to leverage the next generation product development and training capability. The eSHADOW project will develop lightweight multi-material solutions for rolling chassis ladder frames to improve vehicle efficiency and promote the adoption of zero emission vehicle architectures. Specifically, using a hybrid material combination of carbon-fibre reinforced polymer composite and alloys in a volume manufacturing process, weight savings of over 30% as compared to conventional all steel systems will be achieved and these step reductions in vehicle mass will promote the adoption of EV technologies. During the project, the team will demonstrate a new approach for engineering practices that enable the next generation electrified vehicle technologies to be developed. Reducing the reliance on traditional engineering and materials will provide the efficiencies needed to provide a class leading weight optimisation for major CO2 reduction and simultaneous payload increase for commercial vehicles which can translate to all body on frame vehicles. The underpinning predictive design capabilities will be developed within the project, enabling the formulation of reliable digital design tools to accurately predict the performance, durability and failure of hybrid material structures in dynamic chassis applications. The current development methodology relies heavily on known technology and materials. Lightweighting is restricted to optimisation of steel and aluminium components. This approach limits capability to reduce weight significantly. Due to increasing complexity and technology, there is a necessity for a pragmatic approach to lightweighting; to introduce hybrid structures that utilise the right material in the right location. A candidate affordable ladder frame (Ford Ranger) will be developed via multiple design iterations, then optimised and demonstrated with the production of several full-size ladder frames and the performance of this demonstrator frame will be evaluated against all relevant benchmarks. Physical test data will enable the validation of the newly formulated predictive design tools.

"The ViVID project is a Ford led collaborative industry research project that aims to focus on the development of digital engineering tools to promote model based systems design and verification for the Virtual Product Development process. The research will be conducted with a total of three UK industry based partners and an academic partner, who will develop key digital tools to allow UK companies to leverage the improved product development and training capability. During the project, the team will demonstrate a new analytical approach for engineering process that enables the next generation electrified vehicle technologies to be developed. Reducing the reliance on serial engineering and physical prototypes, will provide the efficiencies needed to provide a more competitive attribute set and reduce overall carbon emissions by accelerating time to market of the product."