Low Cost Auxillary Power Unit (LowCAP)

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.