JLR to open a £100-mn advanced R&D centre in the UK

British luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) today said that it plans to open a £100 million ($160 million) advanced research and development centre in the UK focusing on new cutting-edge vehicle technology, innovation and education centre at the University of Warwick.

JLR, owned by Tata Motors, will be the lead partner and invest £50 million to build the 30,000 square metre National Automotive Innovation Campus (NAIC) at the University of Warwick, and the remainder will come from Tata Motors European Technical Centre (TMETC), Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) and the UK Government's Higher Education Funding Council England (HEFCE).

Construction of NAIC is scheduled to begin in September 2014. 

JLR said that around 1,000 academics, researchers, technologists and engineers will work at NAIC, which will feature engineering workshops and laboratories, advanced powertrain facilities and the latest advanced design, visualisation and rapid prototyping technologies.

The development of the new facility, which will complement JLR's product creation centres in Gaydon and Whitley, will be co-ordinated by Dr. Wolfgang Epple, the carmaker's director of Research and Technology.

In this new board-level role, Dr. Epple is leading JLR's innovation and advanced research initiatives and has been appointed as an Honorary Fellow at WMG.

Dr. Epple said, "Investing in collaboration, innovation, research and education is vital if we want to be on a par with our international competitors.  Our future sales success, the success of our global business - and the UK economy - lies in the engineering and innovation that will take place in NAIC.

"Creating a new national focus for automotive research and consolidating JLR's growing research and advanced engineering operations in one centre offers us huge potential. With a critical mass of research capability we will put the UK at the very centre of the global automotive industry - with the NAIC at its hub."

JLR, which plans to invest £2.75 billion in its products and facilities in 2014, expects that it will more than double the size of its advanced research team to 500 people by the time the NAIC opens in 2016.

Exporting cars worth £11billion in 2011-2012 fiscal, JLR is one of the UK's largest exporters by value and generates around 85 per cent of its revenue from exports.

In the 12 months to 31 March 2013, JLR generated profit before tax of £1.675 billion on revenues of £15.8 billion.