LONDON (Reuters) -- Jaguar Land Rover plans to open a $160 million research and development center in the United Kingdom in 2016 to create the next generation of vehicle technologies.
Based at Warwick University in central England the National Automotive Innovation Campus will be used to develop new technologies for electric cars and vehicle connectivity among other things, Jaguar Land Rover said.
The automaker, owned by India's Tata Motors, said around 1,000 academics and engineers would work at the center. Some 200 company researchers and engineers are already based at Warwick University.
Jaguar Land Rover is the lead partner in the project and will invest 50 million pounds in the project with the remainder coming from the Tata Motors European Technical Center, Warwick Manufacturing Group and the government's Higher Education Funding Council.
"These collaborative research programs will harness the best of U.K. engineering innovation, and with the extra capability the NAIC gives us, you can expect the number and range of new, fresh innovative ideas that we patent, and then take to production in the future, to increase significantly," said Antony Harper, Jaguar Land Rover's head of research.
Construction of the new center is scheduled to start in September next year.
