Autac Products Ltd is one step closer to realising its ambitions in electric vehicle manufacture with the official launch of its Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Salford and the arrival of KTP Associate, Kamaal Ali.
Part funded by Innovate UK, KTPs enable UK businesses to bring in new skills and the latest academic thinking to deliver a specific, strategic innovation project.
Macclesfield-based Autac is best known for producing cable and cable assemblies. The critical role of cables in electric vehicle manufacture has led the company to establish a new division of the business, Autac EV Ltd.
With a solid reputation as a leading UK centre for engineering, the University of Salford was the perfect choice for Autac’s academic partner. So too was KTP Associate Kamaal Ali whose dissertation on electric vehicle motorcycles really fuelled his appetite for EV innovation.
On joining the company this January, Kamaal comments,
“Working with an ambitious company like Autac presents me with the best opportunity to put my Mechanical Engineering degree into practice and truly fulfil my academic potential. Creating a product in an area of such global potential and interest is hugely exciting.”
Autac’s KTP will take place over a two-year period. Its primary outcome is to create a brand new product that will revolutionise the EV market. Equally as important, however, is its role in leaving a legacy of innovation, ideas and creation.
It’s this ripple effect that particularly appeals to Autac’s MD David Lowe as he describes,
“Welcoming Kamaal into our business not only allows us to accelerate a long-held ambition to push the boundaries of electric vehicle manufacture; it places innovation firmly at the heart of our wider business which will seed many more projects to come.”
