Lotus has won Government support and funding in the UK to develop an all-new next-generation Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) architecture.

Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) announced the news on 2^nd October and confirmed that the funding has been awarded as part of the APC’s Advanced Route to Market Demonstrator (ARMD) competition. The competition is delivered on behalf of the APC by Cenex, the UK’s Low Carbon and Fuel Cells Centre of Excellence and funded by the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Led by Lotus, the successful application is called LEVA, which stands for Lightweight Electric Vehicle Architecture, which will be targeting the acceleration of and innovation behind new lightweight structures for next-generation BEVs. LEVA will be a showcase for pioneering new BEV chassis and powertrain concepts and incorporate cutting-edge UK-based engineering and digital manufacturing expertise.

Matt Windle, Executive Director of Engineering, Lotus, commented:

“This is great news for our industry and its transition to electrification. As a collaboration between Lotus, Sarginsons Industries and Brunel University London there is a wealth of talent involved, and we are excited to have already begun the project work. Following the launch of the Lotus Evija, our all-electric hypercar, this project is a key building block in our vision to deliver a full range of electrified Lotus performance cars ‘For The Drivers’. Funding of this nature is critical to stimulate the automotive industry and supply chain as both continue to adjust to a rapidly changing landscape.”

Lotus will be collaborating with supply chain partner Sarginsons Industries and leading academics from Brunel University London to harness the full ‘light-weighting’ potential of the vehicle architecture with more details about Project LEVA being released by Lotus and its partners in due course.