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Sustainability

Electrifying collaboration between WMG and JLR

The electrifying collaboration between Warwick’s WMG and JLR that transformed electric vehicles

In 2017, The University of Warwick’s WMG Link opens in a new windowwas awarded £5.7m by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to form an electrifying Prosperity Partnership with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). Since then, WMG and JLR have been accelerating their electrification journey, and JLR is on the road to achieving carbon net zero by 2039.

The Prosperity Partnership saw WMG and JLR collaborate to advance electric vehicle technology and to grow scientific understanding. The aim was to make the UK a global leader in the technology of vehicle electrification, with research specifically focused on battery performance and degradation, new devices and packaging for power electronic, design of electric motors, and the optimisation of electric drives under different conditions. JLR’s vision is that by 2050, almost every car and van in the UK will be an ultra-low emission vehicle.

This collaboration is one of many between WMG and JLR across the past ten years. In the National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC), which opened in 2020, JLR and WMG, alongside Tata Motors, are developing next generation future electrified and autonomous vehicles. Sustainability is at the heart of the NAIC’s purpose, so it’s fitting that the research here is vital in the production of electric vehicles. WMG’s insights into the functionality of lithium-ion batteries have even underpinned the battery development for JLR’s first all-electric SUV vehicle (the Jaguar I-PACE, set to release in 2024).

 

The sustainability benefits

  • Collaborations between WMG and JLR have resulted in the production of an all-electric vehicle. This means the car has no tailpipe, so no carbon dioxide emissions will be produced while driving. As electric vehicles replace standard vehicles, air pollution will be considerably reduced.
  • Electric vehicles run on... you guessed it, electricity! This is instead of the typical diesel or petrol fuels which are non-renewable energy sources. The switch to renewable electricity is much more sustainable.
  • Once an electric car battery or the car itself has come to the end of its life, some parts of it can be recycled or reused. EVs are often much easier to recycle than standard vehicles because they don’t have oily engine parts that will need depolluting.