Europe will be the site for the continued development and production of electric vehicles under these projects, which will run until 2018, all headed by Infineon Technologies.

Total funding is about €67million. There are 70 partners, involving the entire automotive value chain, from chip producers to car manufacturers, 120 researchers from 15 countries, and representatives of ECSEL Joint Undertaking, the European Union, the European Commission and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research will participate.

The three projects will collaborate to research and develop environmentally-friendly, safe and robust electric vehicles. It is hoped that electrical systems used in electric vehicles will benefit from being approximately one-fifth more compact and lighter, their range improved, and their cost lowered by about 25 percent.

The 3Ccar project (Integrated Components for Complexity Control) aims to further strengthen the reliability of automotive systems, despite the increasing vehicle complexity. 48 partners from 14 countries are participating. The research budget is set at €54million.

Through the OSEM-EV (Optimised and Systematic Energy Management in Electric Vehicles), the range of electric vehicles will increase. The activities of the 12 partners are centred on the research of an intelligent thermal management, which includes the cooling system for the electric drive, the battery life and an efficient energy recuperation. The research budget is set at €8million.

The 10 partners from five countries working on the SilverStream project aim to develop an inexpensive electric compact car. The research budget is set at €4.5million.