Jaguar Land Rover has announced its leadership of an advanced powertrain research and development program for state-of-the-art, next-generation hybrid and battery-electric powertrain technologies based on the Range Rover Evoque platform.

The new Evoque_e initiative is a two-year £16.3m UK government Technology Strategy Board project. Jaguar Land Rover will contribute £4m to the project and will lead a group of 12 selected partners – eight from industry and three universities.

The partners include Zytek Automotive, GKN Driveline, Motor Design Limited, AVL, Drive System Design, Williams Advanced Engineering, Delta Motorsport, Tata Steel, Bristol University, Cranfield University and Newcastle University.

2014 Range Rover Evoque

Starting in October 2013, the unique collaboration will design, develop and build three research vehicles showcasing state-of-the-art, next-generation powertrain concepts for a mild hybrid electric vehicle (MHEV); a Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV) and a full Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV).

Peter Richings, Jaguar Land Rover Director Hybrids and Electrification, said in a press release: “The aim of the project is to develop technology platforms which are configurable and compatible within the architecture of an existing production vehicle. The modular technologies include single and multi-speed axle drives; modular battery packs and integrated power electronics, multi-machine, advanced control development and torque vectoring.

The research teams will look at how the speed of the electric motor can be increased, to reduce its size, weight and cost while enhancing performance and durability.

The hoped outcome of the Evoque_e project will be new technologies with the potential for high volume production that are capable of delivering benchmark performance in terms of cost, weight and efficient use of materials.

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