LONDON (Alliance News) - Torotrak PLC said Monday said its on track to trial its new Flybrid M-KERS fuel-saving technology in buses in the second quarter of the year.
KERS is a fuel saving technology that the company acquired when it bought Flybrid Automotive Ltd in January. The company is partnering with Wrightbus to begin trials for the technology with Arriva in the second quarter.
Torotrak bought up the remaining 80% interest in Flybrid that it didn't already own for up to GBP23 million. It paid GBP6 million in cash, and GBP2 million in new shares on completion. The remaining GBP15 million will be paid if the company hits performance targets.
Flybrid's former Managing Director Jon Hilton has been appointed Torotrak's commercial director, and former Technology Director Doug Cross has taken over the role of technology officer at Torotrak.
The company said that demand from international vehicle and Tier 1 manufacturers in the car market for Flybrid KERS technology was increasing in line with its expectations, driven by new regulatory emissions targets that effect new vehicle launches from 2015.
In terms of main drive transmissions, Torotrak said that its engineering focus has been on completing the next milestone towards commercialisation in its Allison commercial vehicle programme. The company said that it had substantially completed its test programme, and was confident it would achieve these milestones.
However, it cautioned that it had been expecting a clear statement from a customer, a European truck and bus manufacturer, regarding its manufacturing licence rights by the end of 2013, but it did not receive one. It said that in the absence of a statement, it expects that the manufacturer will not seek to manufacture industrial vehicle technology in-house, and it would continue to engage with it.
It is also working with a passenger car original equipment manufacturer to work on hardware verification and model verification for its V-Charge technology, and with a technology provider to deliver prototypes of V-Charge to commercial customers for evaluation in the middle of 2014.
Torotrak raised GBP16.0 million last month through a placing and open offer to fund the Flybrid acquisition.
"Since completing the acquisition of Flybrid five weeks ago, I have been delighted by the progress made in integrating the business and the step change in our combined engineering capability," said Chief Executive Jeremy Deering in a statement.
Shares in Torotrak were trading down 3.8% at 21.17 pence Monday morning.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
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