LONDON (Alliance News) - Torotrak PLC Monday said it had made good progress towards its objectives in the second half of its recently-ended financial year, has signed up Ford Motor Co to evaluate its V-Charge smart project, and it's likely to need new funding in the current financial year to continue its development.
In a trading update, the developer if emissions reduction and fuel efficiency technology for vehicles said it expects to report that it ended the financial year to March 31 with at least GBP7.5 million in cash, although it has outstanding loan notes of GBP2.8 million.
"Based on the group's working capital requirements to fund existing projects and to optimise the realisation of the value of its product development and commercialisation programmes that are underway, additional funding from partners, licensees or new and existing shareholders is likely to be required during the 2015/16 financial year," it said.
The company said it is reviewing the key objectives for the current financial year, including funding, organisation, resources and other requirements in order to optimise plans to commercialise its technologies, and these will be set out when it announces its results for the last financial year in early June.
"The Group has made, and continues to make, significant progress in commercialising all of its technologies, particularly in respect of KERS and V-Charge and, in addition, is engaged in commercial discussions with a number of parties about potential new applications for its technology and new commercial development programmes," it said.
It said its project to develop an application-specific, production-oriented version of its V-Charge smart technology, which is being backed by Innovate UK, is progressing to plan. The company has been working closely with the University of Bath during the initial simulation phase of the project and has now signed up Ford, which is working with Torotrak to evaluate the potential benefits of V-Charge technology in engine downsizing.
"The simulation results produced by the University of Bath Powertrain & Vehicle Research Centre using Ford supplied engine models will be used to understand the potential of V-Charge technology to improve fuel consumption or performance, compared to incumbent boosting solutions. The next stage of the project is to validate the simulation predictions on a downsized gasoline engine. The addition of V-Charge targets significant increases in power and low speed torque enabling fitment of this small capacity unit into a wider range of vehicles, to replace larger engines," it said.
Torotrak shares were down 0.8% at 8.93 pence early Monday.
By Steve McGrath; stevemcgrath@alliancenews.com; @stevemcgrath1
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