Sustainable Vehicle Engineering Centre (SVEC)
Contact: svec@brookes.ac.uk
About us
The need for more sustainable transport solutions has never been more pressing in order to meet net zero emissions targets. Vehicles for individual mobility must become smaller, lighter, energy-efficient, recyclable and use renewable energy sources to power them. Future light duty vehicles such as cars and vans must also use fewer primary material resources in their manufacture.
We have produced world-leading research on energy, emissions and materials resource challenges facing the international automotive industry. This has included important work on:
- lightweight vehicles that could be designed for dismantling and materials recovery
- electric powertrains and battery technologies whose component parts can be recycled
- vehicles with a reduced use phase energy consumption that is derived from renewable energy sources.
The automotive sector is currently transitioning to the new normal of electric vehicles (EVs). At the same time, the energy sector will both power these EVs and use the energy stored in vehicle batteries to deliver energy into the electricity grid during times of peak demand. We have modelled the environmental impacts of this entire new energy and transport nexus using sophisticated whole of life cycle assessment methods.
Related research units
Related courses
- Automotive Engineering with Electric Vehicles (BEng (Hons) / MEng)
- Engineering (MPhil / PhD / Masters by Research / PhD by Published Work)
- Mechanical Engineering (BEng (Hons) / MEng)
- Motorsport Engineering (BEng (Hons) / MEng)
Research impact
Multi-disciplinary research at Oxford Brookes University’s Sustainable Vehicle Engineering Centre (SVEC) has uniquely addressed the economic, technical, social and environmental aspects of electric vehicles and personal mobility since 2004. Through collaborations with the automotive industry, local government and public-private partnerships, SVEC has had impact in 3 distinct areas:
- Substantial commercial gain for BMW, who used SVEC’s research in the MINI E project to inform the technical development of their electric cars, and benefitted from guidance on building wider acceptance of electric vehicles in their markets globally.
- Influencing UK transport policy on electric vehicle adoption as a result of real-life demonstrator trials, and influencing policy on powered light vehicles through collaboration with the Zemo Partnership.
- Informing battery strategies through whole life cycle analyses of the emerging energy and transport nexus through collaboration in a sequence of EU and UK projects such as the Faraday Institution’s Reuse and Recycling of Lithium Ion Batteries (ReLIB) project.
SVEC’s research in electric vehicle (EV) introduction and e-mobility began with a fundamental and detailed understanding of the energy requirements through unique modelling and analysis. We created a new methodology for sustainable vehicle design, to enable detailed evaluation of the whole life energy and economic implications of combining different forms of powertrain, components, materials, processes and recycling techniques. This was achieved by combining database information with detailed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) models in a multi-partner EPSRC-funded project entitled Towards Affordable, closed loop Recyclable Future Low Carbon Vehicle Structures (TARF-LCV, 2011-2016). We incorporated whole lifecycle energy analyses with predictions of the market growth of electric and hybrid vehicles.
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BMW Group chose SVEC in 2009 to lead the technical and psychological research elements of the flagship £6m Technology Strategy Board (TSB)-supported MINI E Project UK, 2009-2011. The project included electric vehicle trials in Oxfordshire and the South East as part of Project i (BMW’s holistic approach to future personal transport). Project partners included Scottish and Southern Energy who supplied the home/public charging technology and electricity, Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Councils who provided infrastructure support, and the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) who brokered local partnerships to facilitate vehicle trials. Our key deliverables were demographics of potential customers, an in-depth understanding of their mobility needs and an analysis of underlying motivations in the attractiveness of driving EVs. This involved two 6-month trials of 40 vehicles (effectively ‘beta test’ MINI-Es) with 138 private and fleet drivers, combining objective data-logger information with subjective driver data. Data-loggers analyzed the energy drawn from the grid for both home and public charging, and the energy consumed directly by the cars. This determined the effects of temperature on battery performance during winter weather, the energy used by the vehicles’ ancillary systems, patterns of driver charging and locations of charging, charging efficiency and overall energy use. Oxford City was an early major beneficiary of the electric vehicle trials, with around 80 public charging points installed or planned around the city.
SVEC was supported by the university’s Department of Psychology who analysed the social and psychological aspects of driving electric cars through questionnaire design, diary development, focus groups and interviews with drivers to analyses attitudes and experiences over time. This enabled us to reveal critical factors underpinning customer motivation, covering initial attitudes, adaptation to new technologies, and behavioural change. It became clear that what drives consumers is convenience, emphasizing the vital role that home-charging would play in the future uptake of EVs. Additionally, SVEC developed new business models for BMW to quantify the scale and market potential for EVs in the vital UK business fleet context.
Head of Government Affairs BMW Group (UK) wrote in 2019 that they ‘highly value the output of the research performed by (SVEC) and the way in which it has benefitted all “BMW i” projects after the “MINI E”…. MINI Electric is probably the best local success story, as what set out as a British applied research project many years ago has come full circle with the local production of the MINI Electric in the Oxford plant.’
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Electric transport is inextricably bound to the electricity grid, both in terms of direct energy use and energy storage in vehicle batteries that can deliver energy into the grid during times of peak demand. A thorough understanding and modelling of this new energy and transport nexus is required to deliver a low carbon and robust new approach.
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A UK TSB pilot (2011-12) and multi-partner EU project entitled Materials for Ageing Resistant Li-ion High Energy Storage for the Electric Vehicle (MARS-EV, 2013-17) assessed the feasibility of developing a circular economy for vehicle traction batteries. SVEC developed an LCA model of new Li-ion battery cells to allow cost and environmental optimization, and to develop specific and optimized recycling and/or reuse processes for Li-ion battery cell manufacture and end of first life scenarios.
The Faraday Institution is the UK’s independent national battery research institute, established in 2017 as part of the UK government’s £246m investment in battery technology through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. Reuse and Recycling of Lithium Ion Batteries (ReLIB) https://relib.org.uk/ (2018-21) was one of four £9m EPSRC research projects focused on overcoming battery challenges to accelerate the electric vehicle revolution. We developed a dynamic consequential LCA (C-LCA) model, embedded in a variety of technical and consumer-influenced scenarios, to assess the environmental benefits of Li-ion battery recycling, or second life applications, within the broader context of accelerating the on-going transitions to electric mobility and low-carbon electricity. Fundamental to this is a detailed understanding of the evolution of the electricity grid to provide inputs to this model.
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The following figure shows the transition pathways highlighted in green dictated by policy, the main constraints for batteries highlighted in yellow, and the secondary strategies to alleviate the constraints highlighted in light green. Our dynamic C-LCA model enables us to interrogate each of these items, to identify the most significant elements of the constraints, and to provide quantified outputs over time such as the numbers of end-of-life batteries, amounts of scarce materials available for re-processing and potential vehicle-to-grid energy storage.
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The transition to mainstream electric vehicles during the last decade began with large-scale demonstrator trials. We worked with the UK Centre of Excellence for Low Carbon and Fuel Cell Technologies (CENEX) to provide a national picture for the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and Office for Low Emission vehicles (OLEV). This involved combining information on driver adaptation, infrastructure requirements, cost barriers, EV charging behaviour and energy use from all eight of the UK Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle (ULCV) trials 2009-12 (including the MINI E UK Project). The programme outcomes identified infrastructure and cost barriers that influenced subsequent Government policy and actions such as further funding for EV deployments, learning activities, and Plugged-in-Places funding to help urban regions with infrastructure installation. This may be seen in the Government’s continuing commitment to electrification through subsidies for EV purchase and home charging installation, zero road tax, provision of public charging infrastructure and unification of charge point access and payment for customers.
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SVEC has been an influential member of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (now the Zemo Partnership) since 2014; Prof Hutchinson was a Board Member 2014-16. Our research emphasized the need for small urban EVs and our life cycle assessment data and analysis were included in reports and supporting recommendations for adoption of future urban transport, such as ‘Micro Vehicles - Opportunities for L-Category Vehicles in the UK’ (LowCVP, 2019).
The Managing Director of Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership stated: “…the work (SVEC) carried out, on the applications and on Life Cycle Analysis of the sector, represented a unique assessment of the broad full life GHG (Greenhouse Gas) impact potential of the PLV (Powered Light Vehicle) relative to the existing body of work for conventional vehicles”.
In European research (REPUTE project, 2013-15) we analyzed local policies, financial incentives and market conditions, and energy generation to understand business drivers for electromobility in rural areas, working with local and regional government departments, energy companies and transport organizations. We also authored and produced the REPUTE Guide, published in 4 languages. An end-of-project 2-week roadshow provided seminars in Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal (including at the EU office in Porto). Stakeholders and government officials attended all of the seminars, accompanied by public demonstrations of electric mobility to showcase new technologies and catalyze modal shift.
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