Tata Investing €30 Million in U.K. R&D Facility

Tata confirms its long-term commitment to advanced R&D in the U.K. with subsidiary Tata Motors European Technical Center set to contribute £30 million ($49.2 million) to the planned National Automotive Innovation Campus.

The Indian automaker will be joined in the £100 million ($164 million) project by Jaguar Land Rover and the Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick in Coventry where the NAIC will be built.

TMETC, based at the International Automotive Research Center at the university, was founded by Tata in 2005 with a mandate to carry out external consultancies and collaborative R&D with global partners.

The move builds on that 8-year collaboration with the university and will see the Tata subsidiary expand to a workforce of about 350 covering all areas of automotive design and R&D.

With additional funding from JLR, Warwick Manufacturing and the U.K. government, NAIC will be a research hub where people, research and infrastructure come together to create and develop new technologies to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.

Tata says the work will lead to further collaborations with other academic institutions and industrial partners in the U.K. and internationally.

The facility will include engineering workshops, powertrain and vehicle-engineering laboratories and the latest advanced-design, visualization and rapid-prototyping technologies. Construction begins in September.

Tim Leverton, head of advanced engineering and product development at Tata, says the NAIC investment advances the automaker’s strategy to develop world-class products for its global customers.

“Our teams in India and in the U.K. complement each other in academic excellence and product experience, and we see the U.K. as a global hub for innovative and low-carbon automotive technologies, which will benefit our customers,” he says.

Warwick Manufacturing Chairman Lord Bhattacharyya says the U.K. automotive industry has seen a recent resurgence, but for it to remain internationally competitive a critical mass in research excellence has to be created.

“The NAIC will be an engine for economic growth, with wide economic benefit, and sustained growth from the creation of world-leading technologies,” he says.