To implement state-of-the-art Hardware-in-the-Loop and Driver-in-the-Loop facilities to transform existing powertrain and energy storage design and control capabilities, targeting enhanced energy efficiency, reduced cost and lead time.

Alongside the rapid electrification of the automotive industry, global OEMs are accelerating their plans and efforts to develop new battery technologies. Governments aim to ban the sale of new internal combustion engines as soon as 2030, battery performance and lifetime need to be improved to accelerate this transition. Battery development is expensive, time-consuming and carbon-intensive due to the reliance on physical testing and prototyping. The requirements for high-quality data, expensive equipment and expertise pose a significant barrier for new entrants into the industry. Activities such as cell selection, system design and ageing tests require many months or even years to build a good grounding and understanding of the batteries in question. Modelling and virtual iteration can be used to speed up this battery development. However, while current battery software platforms offer modelling solutions, they do not provide insight on the underlying physical properties of batteries. This insight, together with high-precision testing is needed to bring new innovations to market for state-of-the-art and next-generation batteries. About:Energy has commercialized research developed within Faraday Institution research projects to characterise the electrical, electrochemical and thermal properties of a battery. This project will develop advanced battery ageing testing procedures and models with Imperial College London, aiming to reduce the total cost of ownership of Arrival’s commercial vehicle fleet. Centralising bespoke testing methods reduces the barriers that hinder the adoption of models. “The Voltt” is being created to speed-up battery development, while enabling design optimisation based on energy, power, and lifetime. The Voltt will offer access to specific battery datasets and models that can be used in existing modelling software, streamlining the enhancement of battery performance from the design stages to end-of-life.

The Next Generation Drive Unit project is developing and demonstrating an ambitious new manufacturing model, leveraging Industry 4.0 technologies for the vertical integration of modular robotic manufacturing, to reduce capital investment while providing flexibility and effectiveness. The project will deliver the blueprint for the robomanufacturing concept for Arrival's Electric Drive Unit, in modular integration with the vans assembly microfactory, and will demonstrate the viability of both concept and business case with a full scale operational unit. The consortium is formed of four UK-based partners with expertise spanning multiple disciplines: Arrival (Lead partner), Romax Technology, Versustek and the University of Bradford.

"OmniCAV will lay the foundations for the development of a comprehensive, robust and secure simulator, aimed at providing a certification tool for Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) that can be used by regulatory and accreditation bodies, insurers and manufacturers to accelerate the safe development of CAVs. It brings together a team of eleven internationally renowned organisations, with decades of accumulated knowledge in the area, in order to produce a single-point-of-call simulator to establish when a CAV can safely progress from a testbed to road trial. To achieve this, OmniCAV will use highly detailed road maps, together with a powerful combination of traffic management, accident and CCTV data, to create a high-fidelity dual (traffic and driving) simulation environment, including AI-trained road users to interact with the AV under test. Scenarios for testing will be developed and randomised in a holistic way to avoid CAVs training to specific conditions, whilst maximising coverage, and the integrity of the testing environment will be taken into consideration through creation of a root-of-trust design to secure the test inputs, simulator configuration and resulting test outputs. Critically, the simulator will offer market-leading coverage of a representative element of the UK road network, through encompassing rural roads, peri-urban and urban roads, to help enable autonomy for all. Representatives of the key end-users, including a local authority, an OEM and an insurance provider, will be engaged throughout to understand their needs. The validity of the synthetic test environment compared to the real-world is of particular importance, and OmniCAV will be tested and refined through an iterative approach involving real-world comparisons and working in conjunction with a CAV test-bed. This is an ambitious project aiming to step-change the safe trialing of CAVs in a safe, holistic and challenging manner in order to accelerate their training, deployment and adoption."

The MultiCAV project provides truly multi-modal Mobility as a Service including multiple types of all electric Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: shuttles, bus, taxi and eBikes. For the first time, it extends real passenger carrying services by a range of autonomous vehicles, into mixed traffic on UK public roads. The project provides real service choices between autonomous mobility options, to assess both user behaviour and their commercial viability. Our MaaS platform integrates real-time transport data from numerous sources to provide personalised user options. By these methods we will determine an optimum CAV-based MaaS solution for a specific location in Oxfordshire.

V2GO (Vehicle-To-Grid Oxford) will develop, trial and evaluate potential business models, on- and off-vehicle hardware and products and services by engaging with UK fleet operators. Fleet vehicles account for 56% of new registrations and are quickly (i.e., ?3 years) turned over into the private market. A better understanding of fleet operators' attitudes and valuations of different V2G technologies, products and services could create additional pathways for increasing the uptake of Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEVs). The energy storage capacity of electric vehicles (EVs), present new opportunities and value propositions for V2G power system services (e.g., potentially alleviate the need for generation and transmission investments; increasing network efficiency and energy security. Given the size and use patterns of fleets, they could generate economies of scale that will help realise V2G opportunities and maximise their values. V2GO brings together an interdisciplinary consortium of 8 partners from industry and research with expertise in energy and power markets and systems, fleet operation value chains and electric mobility. The project will address three objectives: 1\. To build confidence in and demonstrate the value of V2G to fleet operators; 2\. To engage with and understand ULEV owner's attitudes to V2G services and technologies; 3\. To demonstrate the technical and commercial potential for ULEVs through the power grid and vehicle-to-building to directly and indirectly support the electricity system. These objectives will be met through a real-world demonstrator trial (WP3), a portfolio of research (WP4; WP5), development of V2G business models, products and services (WP2, WP4) and exploitation and dissemination (WP6, WP7). The trial will run for 20 months and involve at least 100 EVs from different sized fleets including Royal Mail, UPS, DPD, DL, EDF Energy, Oxford County Council, University of Oxford and Addisson Lee. Two novel tools will be developed to facilitate the provision of V2G products and services and maximise their value: 1) a flexibility assessment toolkit, allowing fleet managers and V2G aggregators to work together to quantify the potential benefits of fleet electrification, and the added value of providing V2G products and services; and 2) a real-time coordination platform which will assess: a) based on the size and operation of an EV fleet the combination of V2G services that could maximize overall value (e.g., short term operating reserve, firm frequency response, enhanced reactive power services); and b) how fleet operation could potentially be modified to improve value, considering power system and mobility value chains.

Arrival find trucks today totally unacceptable. At Arrival we are making trucks the way they should be – affordable, elegant, quiet, clean and safe. We are removing all the barriers to entry for electric vehicles by pricing them in line with conventional trucks, giving every fleet manager, tradesman or company, no matter how big or small, the opportunity to change the way they transport goods and make our towns and cities better places to live in. Arrival is well funded by private venture capital but its plans are extremely ambitious and require considerable investment. The public funding provided by the Robopilot project will greatly accelerate the 'safety' component of our vision in line with key objectives of both central Government and City authorities such as Transport for London. It will develop & demonstrate autonomous driving functionality for our recently announced electric delivery van, which can then be adapted for our planned future rollout of larger trucks and buses. It brings advanced autonomous racing technology to the light commercial vehicles market. Demonstration autonomous manoeuvre of the vehicle in a depot environment, without safety driver.