Centre for Automotive Industry Research

Our mission is to focus on the broader business, strategic, social, environmental and economic impacts of global automobility and of the sector that provides it.

The Centre for Automotive Industry Research's (CAIR) mission is to focus on the broader business, strategic, social, environmental and economic impacts of global automobility and of the sector that provides it. We seek to continue to be recognised worldwide by academics, policy makers, industry and other stakeholders as a source of theoretical insight and objective analysis with a uniquely cross-disciplinary perspective.

With increasing pressure to make the automotive industry and its products more sustainable, growing uncertainty in the industry and questioning of existing business models, CAIR’s research expertise is increasingly valued.

Collaborative research

ENEVATE is a project funded by the European Commission via the INTERREG IVb programme, involving multiple international partners to analyse lessons learnt from electric mobility projects in Northwest Europe. CAIR works in partnership with the School of Engineering on this project. CAIR hosted an international Electric Vehicle Summit in June 2012 under the Aegis of ENEVATE and supported by BRASS. This was opened by the First Minister of Wales underlining the importance of this work for the Welsh economy. The First Minister also officially launched the Electric Vehicle Centre of Excellence (EVCE), a Cardiff University centre coordinated by CAIR and the School of Engineering.

CAIR was also a partner in an EPSRC 'Bridging-the-Gaps' project headed up by Dr Liana Cipcigan at the School of Engineering. This project was designed to pool the expertise of colleagues around CU to explore risk factors along the emerging electric vehicle value chain. It is not often appreciated how different this is from the traditional automotive value chain, and the risks involved are often still seen as technological, rather than social, psychological, cultural and regulatory.

Academics from CAIR also participate in Cardiff University’s multidisciplinary Sustainable Places Research Institute.