3 minute read
Lunaz to expand vehicle electrification facilities
Lunaz Applied Technologies has announced a 400% increase in its remanufacturing and electrification footprint in Buckinghamshire, set to be the largest facility of its kind in the UK.
The new facility, located on the Silverstone Technology Park, part of the wider Silverstone Technology Cluster, will be home to 300 highly skilled technicians and engineers in 2022. It will be the global headquarters and R&D hub for the firm, which upcycles and re-engineers specialist industrial fleet vehicles to factory-new-standard and converts them to the Lunaz proprietary electric powertrain.
The new facility has capacity for 1,110 remanufactured and electrified vehicles per year. The company says this will save 44,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. The investment follows the signing of an agreement to explore the remanufacturing and electrification of Buckinghamshire Council’s fleet of diesel refuse trucks.
Lunaz is to grow its manufacturing footprint by 400% and create 300 jobs at Silverstone to re-engineer and electrify specialist industrial fleet vehicles / Picture: Lunaz
David Lorenz, founder and CEO of Lunaz, said: “Ours and previous generations built billions of vehicles. Now is the time to realise the potential of remanufacturing to break the replace-with-new cycle by electrifying them for future generations. Lunaz’ commitment to establishing the UK’s largest remanufacturing and electrification facility is just the start. We look forward to many more globally as we plot a more sustainable course to vehicle decarbonisation.”
Cllr. Martin Tett, Leader of Buckinghamshire Council, added: “As a council we are fully committed to doing all we can do to cut our carbon emissions and we know that converting our diesel and petrol vehicles to electric power as soon as we can, would be a giant step towards doing that.
“Together [with Lunaz], we hope to explore the best ways for converting our existing fleet of vehicles to electric. Rather than scrapping them and buying new, the innovative technologies being developed and employed by Lunaz will help us to use a much greener option, to effectively upcycle and rejuvenate our current fleet to fully electric vehicles.”
Lunaz says remanufacturing and electrification plots a dramatically more sustainable course to the decarbonisation of industrial and passenger vehicle fleets. It also saves significant capital over buying new electric vehicles with remanufactured electric refuse trucks costing councils broadly the same as their diesel equivalents.
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David Lorenz, Lunaz founder and CEO, says its solution presents an affordable route to EV refuse truck fleets with an up to 40% saving over new EV equivalents / Picture: Lunaz
Every vehicle that undergoes this process is overhauled to a standard which means that it can be warrantied ‘as new’. This mirrors an approach successfully employed by the global passenger jet industry. For example, the average age of a British Airways Boeing 777 is 17 years. Remanufacturing of key systems and components is used throughout the industry to increase usable life and deliver a cost effective route to ensuring the highest standards of safety and functionality over extended life-cycles. Every component is upcycled to a factory standard with a clear focus on reducing waste.
Lunaz develops all software in-house. This ensures end-users are presented with a vehicle equipped with the latest safety and control equipment. This includes the replacement of wing-mirrors with camera equipment and latest blindspot protection through side-facing RADAR and 360 birds-eye view cameras to increase awareness of surroundings and safety of workers when manoeuvring.