West Sussex-based Ricardo, a world-leading environmental, engineering and strategic consulting company, has formally opened a new ‘state of-the-art digitally enabled Electrified Propulsion Research Centre at its Shoreham Technical Centre to shape the future of sustainable transport.

Designed to leverage and enhance Ricardo’s expertise in test and development, this new facility will be a global centre of excellence for electrified transport engineering.

Designed to support the company’s existing work in powertrain optimisation and electrification, the new research centre, which has cost £5.5 million and included a grant of £1.5 million from the Coast2Capital Local Enterprise Partnership, will enable the R&D of the next generation of electrified vehicles (EVs) from component level subsystems to fully integrated powertrains.

It will significantly increase the range of services and solutions across all platforms and applications in electric vehicle development available to global customers.

Steve Dyke, Ricardo Automotive and Industrial EMEA Division managing director, said: “We continue to consolidate our position as a trusted engineering partner delivering clean, efficient and integrated propulsion and energy systems across all modes of transport.

“A key component of our strategy is to establish a global centre of excellence for electrified transport engineering at our Shoreham Technical Centre which will be essential for the future of sustainable mobility.”

The new research centre will be underpinned by digital engineering and simulation technology, including digital twins which will replicate the physical environment and will be refined with actual test data to accelerate development times.

The facility is designed to integrate seamlessly with the company’s digital analysis, simulation and calibration accelerators so that vehicles can be developed holistically using fully optimised technology solutions.

This will further enhance the company’s established digital engineering expertise, allowing the provision of customer solutions which: are greener because they are less energy- and resource-intensive; remove risk from development through more efficient, faster digital techniques; reduce cost and time to market to provide competitive advantage.

Ricardo’s Electrified Propulsion Research Centre in conjunction with its investment in the building of a hydrogen test and development centre will create a clean energy transport centre of excellence which will be unique in the UK.

It will provide customers with access to a powerful flexible package of decarbonised and electrified transport engineering test and development services, and will accelerate Ricardo’s position as a leader in this field.