Electrification
The West Midlands is the home of the UK automotive industry.
We have a history steeped in vehicle manufacturing and a future geared towards electrification.
Locate, scale up and expand in our region where your business will benefit from leading infrastructure, skills and expertise to develop cutting-edge EV battery technology for the 21st century.
Green Power Park
Advanced Propulsion Centre
World-Class Universities
WMG's Innovation Centre
The Green Power Revolution
The West Midlands is a hub of innovation. It brings together the business leaders, talented minds and facilities needed to revolutionise industries.
Maeving, the UK’s first electric motorcycle manufacturer, is one such company dedicated to decarbonisation and electrification. Co-founder Seb Inglis-Jones spoke about the benefits of setting up in the West Midlands and why “you’ve got to make the West Midlands your home.”
Did you know?
The GigaHub™ at NEC Birmingham is the UK’s largest public EV charging hub, featuring 30 ultra-fast 300kW and 150 fast 7kW charge points, allowing 180 EVs to charge at the same time.
Battery Manufacturing & Recycling
The green industrial revolution is happening here in the West Midlands with the rapid advancement of new battery technology.
Businesses across our rich R&D ecosystem are optimising battery design and efficiency and preparing for large-scale manufacture.
But that’s not all. Our region also provides opportunities to re-manufacture, re-use and recycle EV batteries. Our proximity to a high density of OEM supply chains means transportation costs and associated risks are low.
Greenpower Park
Partnering with Greenpower Park offers businesses a strategic edge in advancing the UK’s green automotive industry. With the Coventry and Warwick Gigapark as its anchor tenant and proximity to UKBIC, this facility places your business at the forefront of electrification and clean energy innovation.
As the UK’s only large-scale battery production site with a 60GWh capacity, Greenpower Park delivers an all-in-one solution for battery research, manufacturing, testing, recycling, and electrified logistics. This approach minimizes operational complexity and speeds up EV battery technology advancements.
Access to a skilled workforce in the West Midlands and £160m in funding through the West Midlands Investment Zone further enhances opportunities for growth and innovation.
UKBIC
UKBIC empowers businesses to develop and scale the next generation of battery systems, from early-stage innovation to full-scale, high-volume manufacturing of new battery technology for electric cars.
With access to over £60 million in specialist industrial-grade equipment, alongside expert consultancy and training services, your business can scale up processes whilst enhancing operational efficiencies.
Coventry-based Volklec is utilising UKBIC’s resources to develop and produce sustainable batteries for niche on-road, off-highway, and track vehicles. This collaboration is critical to Volklec’s path toward giga-scale manufacturing.
UKBIC supports businesses across the value chain that are ready to lead in sustainable battery innovation. The Centre accelerates innovation, which will directly play a critical role in powering the UK’s future Gigafactories.
WMG’s Energy Innovation Centre
Funded by the High Value Manufacturing Catapult (HVMC), WMG’s EIC provides businesses with a nationally accredited facility for electric car battery research. The Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) supports testing at every development stage—from materials to recycling—ensuring market-ready, scalable concepts.
Businesses can test batteries in large quantities, gaining insights across industries like automotive, supercar manufacturing, technology, and aerospace. WMG’s experts helped Nissan develop a process that reduced the grading time for used Li-ion batteries from 3 hours to just 3 minutes, enabling reuse rather than disposal.
EIC offers a full solution for battery development, testing, and recycling, helping businesses enhance battery value, lifespan, and sustainability.
HyProMag
HyProMag, a University of Birmingham spin-out, is leading the way in recycling sintered rare-earth magnets to create a UK supply chain crucial for electric motors.
For businesses needing sustainable rare-earth materials, HyProMag strengthens local supply chains and supports eco-friendly practices in the automotive industry through a circular economy.
Currently, HyProMag is developing a scale-up plant at Tyseley Energy Park, initially targeting 20 tonnes per annum (tpa) of rare earth magnets and alloys, with plans to scale up to 100tpa and potentially up to 1,000tpa.
Propelling the future of electrification
Projections suggest the UK must produce three million drive units annually by 2030. The presence in the West Midlands of sector leaders, such as ZF and Lyra Electronics, along with our proximity to the F1 triangle renowned for propulsion and engineering expertise across racing teams, significantly enhances our supply chain capabilities. It also provides exciting opportunities for more businesses to get involved in the sector.
HORIBA MIRA Propulsion Test & Development Centre
HORIBA MIRA’s Propulsion Test and Development Centre is designed to help OEMs meet increasingly stringent emissions standards. At the state-of-the-art facility, your business can achieve emissions compliance much earlier in the development cycle, leading to significant time and cost savings.
The centre provides OEMs with emissions, performance and validation testing using the latest simulation hardware to replicate real-world environmental conditions, including temperature, pressure, and humidity.
Centre for Advanced Low Carbon Propulsion Systems (C-ALPS)
Coventry University and FEV’s C-ALPS is a cutting-edge facility dedicated to hydrogen research, development and testing. C-ALPS can support your business in developing a variety of future propulsion technologies through collaboration with leading manufacturers, electrification start-ups, and research consortia to advance e-mobility and zero-emission drive systems.
Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC)
The APC is a key partner for businesses looking to lead the transition to a net zero automotive industry. Your business can access funding, support and insights to develop breakthrough technologies, build resilient supply chains and invest in the facilities needed to tackle the major challenges of achieving green transport.
The APC’s vast expertise of collaborating with organisations can help your business bring to life the most innovative and impactful projects that can help you on the road to net zero.
Vehicle Innovation & Supply Chain
The West Midlands leadership in low-carbon technologies extends beyond OEMs to include tier-one and tier-two suppliers, expert consultancies, testing grounds and leading academic institutions.
Together, our region’s ecosystem is advancing global propulsion systems, autonomous vehicles, and micromobility solutions, strengthened by leading expertise through collaborative R&D, and training and skills development that will shape tomorrow, today.
Automotive innovation is ingrained in our region’s DNA. So, as the focus of the industry shifts to vehicles that are greener, safer and smarter, it’s no surprise that the West Midlands’ research-driven ecosystem stands as a UK leader for businesses involved in electrification and cutting-edge low-carbon technologies.
National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC)
At NAIC, businesses can reimagine the future of transportation, advancing world-class propulsion technologies from development to implementation. A collaboration between WMG at the University of Warwick, Jaguar Land Rover, and Tata Motors European Technical Centre, NAIC is Europe’s largest research centre of its kind. It offers an environment where industry and academic experts can collaborate and share ideas on a vast scale.
Businesses can leverage the Advanced Propulsion Research Laboratory (APRL), the UK’s first dedicated facility for cutting-edge powertrain research and low-carbon automotive technology industrialisation. APRL provides development and testing services, including power electronics, internal combustion, and emissions testing, while also designing custom rigs to meet specific needs.
National Transport Design Centre (NTDC)
Operating within the Centre for Future Transport and Cities, NTDC brings together designers, psychologists and technologists to explore the future of transport design. The centre also has a strong track record of working with businesses via secondments, internships, knowledge transfer programmes, collaborative research and direct consultancy to improve the design capabilities of industry professionals.
National Centre for Additive Manufacturing (NCAM)
At the forefront of additive technology, experts at NCAM work with organisations and businesses from multiple sectors – including Aerospace, Space, Defence, Power & Energy – to unlock the benefits of additive manufacturing. The result can be anything for your business, from reconfiguring supply chains for reshoring production to addressing part obsolescence.
Autonomous Vehicles
The West Midlands was historically known as the workshop of the world. Times have changed, but perhaps not that much. Our deep knowledge across diverse sectors means that we continue to drive global innovation and change.
Our 5G connectivity and controlled testing environments have enabled us to lead the UK’s connected autonomous vehicle ecosystem, developing and manufacturing software, systems and parts. In recent years, we’ve also been responsible for the growing number of companies collaborating at the intersection between cyber security and CAM technologies.
Centre for Connected Autonomous Automotive Research (CCAAR)
Located at MIRA Technology Park, Europe’s largest automotive R&D cluster, CCAAR supports businesses in developing intelligent, connected vehicle technology in response to the challenges faced by the transport sector.
A collaboration between HORIBA MIRA and Coventry University, CCAAR provides your business with an environment to simulate, test and evaluate the security and safety of Connected Autonomous Vehicles.
Businesses can benefit from unparalleled access to HORIBA MIRA’s world-class facilities and technologies, including a range of information and communications technology and specialist laboratories.
Through Project CERTUS, CCAAR is also transforming the validation and verification process for automated driving systems, increasing the speed of new automated driving technologies brought to market sooner.
HORIBA MIRA Assured CAV
HORIBA MIRA’s 850-acre world-class Assured CAV facility is designed to help businesses understand how their CAV and ADAS systems behave in a wide range of scenarios. The facility offers insights essential to developing the next generation of transport across CAV, verification and validation, virtual engineering, ADAS robustness, and safety cases for automated driving deployments.
HORIBA MIRA was chosen by start-up OEM, TOGG, as the chassis system engineering partner for the development of its first production vehicle – an all-new battery electric SUV. Collaborating closely with Tier 1 suppliers in the region, HORIBA MIRA delivered end-to-end support from concept through to production.
Midlands Future Mobility (MFM)
MFM supports businesses with Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) trials, providing a comprehensive testing environment to refine and prove their technologies across real-world scenarios.
Your business can test a range of CAM technologies from Low Speed ‘shared space’ vehicles through to next generation Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), connected technologies and autonomous vehicle systems on a unique combination of routes, including urban, rural and highway roads.
A springboard for scalable, future mobility technologies and services, MFM brings together leading organisations from the automotive, transport, communications, infrastructure and research sectors to create an extensive connected platform for the development of CAM solutions.
Micromobility
The thriving towns and urban centres of the West Midlands provide the perfect testing grounds for first and last mile journeys for Mobility-as-a-Service, as well as first-adopter initiatives and schemes in the region.
E-Scooters in the West Midlands
Businesses have a unique opportunity to get involved in this expansive micromobility space that will shape the future of urban mobility. The West Midlands offers your business a primed environment to collaborate, innovate and support regional initiatives.
Through exciting partnerships with Transport for West Midlands, companies like Beryl are working on a number of projects in Birmingham’s e-scooter trial zone and its wider integration into the region’s transport infrastructure. Beryl originally started with 200 e-scooters but is now rolling out an additional 700 across the city centre and surrounding neighbourhoods.
The Micromobility UK Conference hosted by the University of Warwick, is the UK’s only in-person, annual expo dedicated to Micromobility where your business can network and uncover everything from barriers to adoption on the demand side, to industry challenges and opportunities on the supply side.
Electrification knowledge, talent and skills for employers
With a formidable workforce of 50,000 employed in the sector (30% of the UK’s automotive workforce) and another 20,000 in related sectors, the West Midlands is firmly positioned as the epicentre of electrification.
To meet the needs of the future, every business must raise their game. That’s why we have leading initiatives across our region that help businesses develop their employees and future-proof supply chain talent.
This includes partnerships with academic institutions and study centres, which prepare local people with the mindset, technical skills and knowledge required by businesses transitioning into electrification and green technologies.
DEBUT-WM
Digital Enhanced Battery Ubiquitous Training-West Midlands, known as DEBUT-WM, has brought together experts from academia, local government and industry to create a pioneering training programme designed to grow new skills in battery manufacturing, repair and innovation.
Jointly delivered by the University of Warwick, Cranfield University and RAVMAC LTD, with the support of project partners including Jaguar Land Rover, the programme is open to both employers and learners and is further deepening the region’s specialist talent pool.
PEMD training bootcamps
As vehicles of all types transition towards greener energy sources, engineers and technicians in the transport sector will need to equip themselves with the skills to keep up.
North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College (NWSLC), in collaboration with Coventry University and engineering industry partners, is developing a series of short, intensive Power Electronics, Machines and Drives (PEMD) training bootcamps to be conducted in high-tech mobile labs. Over £800,000 of funding has been secured from Innovate UK as part of the Driving the Electric Revolution challenge.
WMCA Digital Bootcamp Training
The West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) ‘Digital Bootcamp Training’ is part of a £7m investment that’s helping up to 3,000 people per year become the next generation of cyber talent. WMCA is working with employers to identify skill gaps and focusing on national skill shortages in cyber security, coding and software development.
Free support services
We bring together a project team from relevant organisations across the region. This team includes property agents, recruitment consultants, public sector departments and universities. It delivers a comprehensive support package to quickly and easily help you establish and scale your business in the UK.
Take a look at…
Low Carbon
Key Sectors
Automotive
Future Mobility