Lunaz Applied Technologies announced today that it will be quadrupling the size of its upcycling facility in Silverstone, England. The U.K. company will use the space to replace the diesel engines in old industrial vehicles with electric powertrains.
In all, Lunaz has added 140,000 square feet (13,006 square meters) to its existing facilities, which it will use as a manufacturing base. That increase in size will be supplemented by 300 new employees.
“This landmark project represents a huge step forward for Lunaz Applied Technologies and the wider drive towards clean-air mobility,” said David Lorenz, the founder of Lunaz. “We’re backing our own technology, processes and people, and making a powerful statement of intent for our vision of [LAT]; it’s also a renewed vote of confidence from us and our investors in the UK as our chosen long-term location for LAT’s manufacturing and R&D activities.”
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Specifically, the company will take end-of-life industrial vehicles, strip them down, remove their diesel engines, and convert them into warrantied-as-new condition electric vehicles. A study commissioned by Lunaz found that by upcycling old vehicles, rather than building brand-new EVs, the company saves 80 percent of a vehicle’s lifetime embedded carbon emissions.
Beyond the inherent benefit of upcycling, the company’s processes are also as green as possible. The campus has been built to be highly thermally efficient, and the heaters are powered using sustainable electricity. All tools in the facility will be battery operated and vehicle ramps will have a kinetic energy recovery system to minimize their power usage.
The vehicles, meanwhile, don’t just get an engine swap, they’re also improved throughout. Lunaz’s electromodding process sees these vehicles stripped down to the bare chassis, shot blasted with a highly reusable material, painted using the same material found on the fan blades of jet engines for maximum longevity, and all plastics repaired or recoated. The traditional dashboards, meanwhile, are replaced with digital screens.
This facility is the first on earth to focus entirely on upcycling, the company says, and makes it a world leader in this type of recommissioning. When the new facility is up and running at full capacity, Lunaz will be able to make 1,100 UEVs per year.
“This development will enable us to unlock the vast potential of UEV technology to break the replace-with-new cycle and bring us ever closer to carbon neutrality,” said Lorenz.
