University of Brighton and Allways Forktruck Services Limited KTP 24_25 R2

A forklift truck, digger, or tractor that currently runs on diesel is being stripped of its engine and rebuilt as an electric vehicle. This project develops the engineering know-how to retrofit and convert Non-Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM)—the vast fleet of construction, agricultural, and industrial vehicles that rarely run on roads—from fossil fuels to electric power. These machines are a major source of carbon emissions and air pollution, yet they are often overlooked in electrification efforts because each vehicle type has unique power, weight, and duty-cycle requirements. A one-size-fits-all electric drivetrain does not exist. The gap is in the engineering processes needed to design, test, and certify conversions for hundreds of different machine models safely and cost-effectively. If this succeeds, the project will embed scientifically informed electrification capabilities directly into a UK company, allowing it to retrofit existing NRMM at scale rather than scrapping them for new electric models. That could cut embodied carbon, reduce diesel emissions from construction sites and farms, and accelerate decarbonisation of a sector that quietly powers much of the built environment and food supply. The impact is on the machines that dig foundations, lift pallets, and harvest crops—not on the daily commute.