Automotive Transformation Fund Feasibility Studies: Round 4

Key Features

UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £2 million. This is for business case feasibility studies to support scale up of the UK’s zero emission automotive supply chain.

Programme:     APC

Award:     Share of up to £2 million

Opens: 3rd Apr 2023

Closes: 11th May 2023

! This scheme is now closed

Overview

The Automotive Transformation Fund is delivered by the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) and partners, Innovate UK and the Department for Business and Trade. The Department for Business and Trade has taken responsibility for some of the functions of the former Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Department for International Trade (DIT). It supports the industrialisation at scale of a high-value electrified automotive supply chain in the UK.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to fund feasibility studies which must produce a decision-ready business case. This is in preparation for projects which will develop large scale manufacturing facilities in the UK.

The Automotive Transformation Fund will support the industrialisation at scale of a high value automotive supply chain for net zero technologies in the UK.

More information on the Automotive Transformation Fund can be found on the APC website.

Your projects must produce a suitably detailed and reasoned business case to aid a future investment decision.

These business case feasibility studies must:

  • result in a detailed business case enabling a decision either to invest in the project, and therefore the UK, or showing clearly the additional steps or measures to do so
  • be commercialised within the automotive sector, but this does not exclude spill over use in other sectors
  • deliver a closeout report and attend a meeting with APC to review the business case, its outcomes and next steps, prior to closure and payment of the final claim

Specific Themes

Your business case must prioritise the scale up in areas mentioned in the Automotive Transformation Fund Strategy for an electrified supply chain.

Your project must prioritise scale up and can focus on but not be limited to:

Batteries, including cells and gigafactories

  • cathode materials and manufacturing
  • anode materials and manufacturing
  • electrolyte
  • cell assembly components, including separators
  • module to pack
  • cell to pack

Electric motors and drives

  • magnet materials and manufacturing
  • electrical steel materials and manufacturing
  • electrical machine assembly
  • drive line components
  • assembly and test into complete drive unit

Power electronics

  • wide band gap semi-conductors
  • sensors
  • passives
  • power electronics assembly

Fuel cells

  • membrane electrode assembly (MEA)
  • fuel cell stack assembly
  • storage tanks

Recycling

  • batteries
  • electric motors and drives
  • power electronics and fuel cells, for example where there is a move towards circular economy, particularly for critical materials

Sectors in scope can include the supply chain for on and off-road vehicles, agriculture, heavy duty and mining.

Eligibility

Your project must:

  • have a grant funding request between £100,000 and £350,000
  • provide a detailed feasibility study and business case, to include reasons to aid future investment
  • start by 1 November 2023
  • last between 6 and 9 months
  • carry out all of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

Under current restrictions, this competition will not fund any procurement, commercial, business development or supply chain activity with any Russian and Belarusian entity as lead, partner or subcontractor. This includes any goods or services originating from a Russian and Belarusian source.

To lead a project or work alone your organisation must:

  • be a UK registered business of any size
  • request grant funding
  • carry out its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK

Academic institutions cannot lead or work alone.

To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:

  • business of any size
  • academic institution
  • charity
  • not for profit
  • public sector organisation
  • research and technology organisation (RTO)

Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs into the Innovation Funding Service.

To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.

Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.

Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.

Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.

You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.

You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. We will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.

All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.

There are no restrictions on the number of applications on which an eligible organisation can lead or partner in. Successful applicants will be asked to confirm you have the capacity to run multiple projects simultaneously.

You can use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.

Exclusions

APC are not funding projects that are:

  • not aligned with the aims of the Automotive Transformation Fund
  • not of sustained benefit to the automotive sector primarily
  • centred on technologies or processes which are too early stage to scale at pace
  • focussed primarily on fossil-fuelled internal combustion technology
  • focussed primarily on the use of digital or data technologies
  • centred on low carbon fuels for combustion engines
  • focused on the production of hydrogen
  • centred around off-vehicle charging infrastructure
  • focussed on a micromobility application
  • focused on vehicle level production

APC cannot fund projects that are:

  • dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product

Funding Costs

Up to £2 million has been allocated to fund innovation projects in this competition. Funding will be in the form of a grant.

If your organisation’s work on the project is commercial or economic, your funding request must not exceed the limits below. These limits apply even if your organisation normally acts non-economically but for the purpose of this project will be undertaking commercial or economic activity.

For feasibility studies projects, you could get funding for your eligible project costs of:

  • up to 70% if you are a micro or small organisation
  • up to 60% if you are a medium sized organisation
  • up to 50% if you are a large organisation

Research participation

The research organisations undertaking non-economic activity as part of the project can share up to 30% of the total eligible project costs. If your consortium contains more than one research organisation undertaking non-economic activity, this maximum is shared between them. Of that 30% you could get funding for your eligible project costs of up to:

  • 80% of full economic costs (FEC) if you are a Je-S registered institution such as an academic
  • 100% of your project costs if you are an RTO, charity, not for profit organisation, public sector organisation or research organisation

APC levy

In securing funding from this programme, each participant receiving a grant will pay an industrial contribution to the APC operating budget. This is set at 3% and is payable on each grant received.

Interested in applying for this competition?

Book an appointment to speak to one of our advisors to discuss your eligibility to apply for this Grant Funding opportunity.