What Makes the West Midlands Great for Future Mobility?
We spoke to the people who are leading the change and heard from them exactly why the West Midlands is one of the most exciting locations to invest.
Watch the video below, or read the transcript.
HORIBA MIRA
The MIRA Technology Park offers testing, development and engineering consultancy to vehicle manufacturers. Their world-class facilities can test autonomous vehicle, electrification and emissions technology. They work with companies to develop safer, cleaner and smarter vehicles.
Warwick Manufacturing Group
The Warwick Manufacturing Group is a department at the University of Warwick that drives collaborations between academia and the private sector. They work with companies to develop science, technology and engineering in order to further everything from materials manufacturing to intelligent vehicle design. Their work and capability is hugely applicable to aspects of transport technology and developing the vehicles of the future.
UK Battery Industrialisation Centre
Organisations in the West Midlands have doorstep-access to the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC). The open-access research and manufacturing facilities on offer allow companies to design, test and scale battery technology in a way very few do, giving them an edge in the market.
Combining this with the under-construction Coventry Gigafactory, low carbon, future mobility companies in the West Midlands are well-placed to be developing the future of electric transport.
Our experts are here to help you
Our sector experts are here to help companies like yours move to the West Midlands. Investing and locating here comes with a huge array of benefits that is drawing companies away from even the capital.
Free of charge, we can help with many aspects of relocation and investment, including:
- Locating suitable office space
- Bringing you up to date with local business insights
- PR and communications
- Finding funding routes
- Introductions to the local networks of industry leaders
You can read more about the ways that we can help you set up, or you can contact our sector experts directly.
Download the investment brochure
Video transcript
00:08 – Professor Clive Roberts – Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education
The West Midlands is the UK’s Future Mobility Zone. We really are very much at the forefront of innovations. Lots of work we’re doing on everything from hydrogen trains to electric vehicles, a whole array of different things that are really important going forward.
00:25 – Roisin Hopkins – HORIBA MIRA
We’ve got a lot of automated features appearing into vehicles today. And what we do here at HORIBA MIRA is provide a really great network of facilities that really help the development of that technology.
00:38 – Margot James – Warwick Manufacturing Group
We are host to the Midlands Future Mobility Commission, which is here based on campus. We regard our campus essentially as a testbed for new and novel means of getting around. We’re working on all sorts of versions of personal mobility of the future.
00:55 – Lisa Bingley – MIRA Technology Institute
The automotive industry is now focusing on all the emerging technologies such as fuel cells, electrification, cybersecurity. We’re in the perfect location to upskill the current workforce.
01:06 – Roisin Hopkins
It’s a really exciting time for the industry, really. The changes around electrification and alternative propulsion – obviously, that’s got a fantastic impact on the environment and our health.
01:19 – Charlotte Harper – UK Battery Industrialisation Centre
We’ve all seen electric cars starting to appear on the roads. That means that we need battery manufacturing on a humongous scale. We are here to scale up the UK’s battery manufacturing capability and upskill our workforce.
01:35 – Margot James
We have a skilled workforce, we have a sophisticated supply chain, to the aerospace sector to the automotive sector. We also have seven universities that is constantly replenishing the skilled workforce.
01:49 – Matt Faulks – Viritech
It’s the central location, which is so important from a recruitment perspective or supplier perspective.
Hannah Leggatt – High Speed 2 (HS2 LTD)
It’s central to everything. So, if you look at HS2, you’re gonna be able to jump on a train in Birmingham, and be in London in 48 minutes. You can be in Manchester in 41 minutes. And that gives people something that you cannot buy, which is time.
02:11 – Matt Wharton – Norton Motorcycles
Because it’s a central hub, it’s also beneficial for transportation links. But also, when it comes to logistics, we’re right near Birmingham Airport and the central hubs for all logistics companies as well for getting goods into the UK and back out.
02:24 – Anwar Almojarkesh – Innovation Factory (HS2 innovation beneficiary)
There is a great opportunity in the West Midlands to grow any sort of business. In our case, there was a combination between funding from HS2 and business coaching from Catapult Connected Places. Those two mix was great for the company, but also to think about the market, how to approach this market, how to approach train operating companies, how you’re going to sell this solution, how to promote it.
02:49 – Roisin Hopkins
Lots of the manufacturers at the moment, are looking at how they work with vehicles in the future. It’s not necessarily about a consumer buying a product. We talk now about mobility as a service. So that’s smarter technology – ride hailing, calling your vehicle to your house calling your vehicle to work. There are lots of changes enabled through this smarter technology.
03:11 – Professor Clive Roberts
Here in the West Midlands, we really are working at that nexus of future research, future capability, as a sort of ecosystem of different companies able to play a role. Whether that’s from app development through to fundamental energy technologies, and also, we have a region that is ambitious about its transport for the future.