Interview with Adrian Moore

What is the focus of Xtrac?

We are a small, privately owned company based in the UK. We employ about 250 people; about ten of whom are based the U.S. in Indianapolis. We design, manufacture and supply transmissions predominately for motor racing. We also use some of our expertise, knowledge and experiences that we've had over the years in racing in the automotive and engineering based markets, particularly advanced vehicle development of hybrid, electric vehicles and energy recovery for vehicles. A company may come to us if they are designing and making some novel advanced electric vehicle and they need a transmission for that vehicle. Initially, they are going to need to build one or two vehicles as a technology demonstrator and it is very, very difficult to design and make a transmission for that purpose using conventional methods, so we use our racing methodology and design to make prototype transmissions and we've been quite successful in doing that.

If you look at our racing markets our customers are predominately the major professional race teams in the major series around the world. It is Formula One, it is SportsCar, Indy Cars, a little bit of NASCAR, touring cars, and rally cars. When I say we take the technology, we are also taking the methodology and way of approaching projects, our philosophy. We are taking that philosophy and taking it for example into the automotive, aerospace, defense and marine sectors, which are increasingly seeking out our methodologies rather than just the necessary technologies -- it is actually the way in which we tackle projects. It is the way of approaching the problem and coming up with a solution which means we can deliver a very rapid response, because we are used to delivering a very rapid response in motor racing.

Is the transmission part of vehicle technology more important than ever?

It sounds like Xtrac has become the dominant manufacturer or technology company with respect to racing globally. How is that?

We try very hard. We've been going for 25 years -- the company is privately owned, but it is owned by the work force; everybody who works at the company owns the company. It is quite an unusual arrangement; it is unusual in the UK and anywhere really. Everybody who works for the company is a shareholder in the business, so everybody has a very strong vested interest in performing well in their job. All of the profits that we make in the business are re-invested back into the business. We are not a PLC. We don't have to pay dividends to external shareholders. The structure of the company is a little bit different and I think that is a big part of our success -- all the way from the guy who cleans the machines to the managing director -- we all have a stake in the business.

The company's roots are in off-road racing in Europe, particularly rally cross, which was popular in Britain in the eighties, and in the northern part of Europe. That is really where the company started and then it moved into rallying, which is popular all over Europe and in Australia and New Zealand and the Far East with Subaru, Mitsubishi, Mazda and Toyota. We were heavily involved with those Japanese manufacturers in the eighties. We first got involved in Formula One in 1989. That is quite early in the company's history and we got involved in Le Mans in 1992 and touring cars about that same sort of time as well. Really, by the mid-nineties, we were pretty much involved with all of the main formulas that we are involved with now. We were heavily involved in the Champ cars in the nineties and the days of the Reynard vs Lola battles in Champ cars. We've always had a strong presence over here and we've been involved with Penske almost since the beginning of our company as well.

You've developed some energy recovery systems, or KERS. Talk about that with respect to the racing industry as well as its application to vehicle and engine technology in general?

Three years ago in Formula One, they changed the regulation for 2009 and they wanted this so-called kinetic energy recovery system -- KERS. The idea behind KERS is that as the vehicle slows you recover the energy that you would normally lose through the brakes. You recover it, store it, and then when you accelerate, you discharge the energy back into the vehicle to help you accelerate quicker. That is the fundamental reason for it. The Formula One cars with this system are effectively hybrid vehicles. We got involved with a company called Flybrid Systems who are the complete system supplier. It’s a small start-up company, started by two guys who are ex-Cosworth, Toyota and Renault Formula One, so they've got a long history of racing. They started this business with a really clever idea of using a flywheel to store energy. To join the flywheel to the vehicle, you need a transmission which is where we've been involved. The CVT transmission (continuously variable transmission) exists to speed-match the flywheel to the vehicle. The flywheel, when it is at a high speed, has to speed-match to the vehicle to discharge the energy from the flywheel to the vehicle. When the flywheel speeds drop down, the energy flow then goes the other way from the vehicle to the flywheel, so we speed-match back to the vehicle. We've been involved and still are heavily involved with that system, in particular with the CVT transmission part of it. That program was an FIA initiative by Max Mosley, who as president of the FIA changed the regulation to try and get Formula One to showcase this technology.

There are two potential advantages behind doing that. One is that Formula One will force that technology to be developed very quickly, because it was a requirement to put it in race cars by 2009. It will really accelerate the technology and development. There is an argument against that, in that the technology that has been developed is specifically for Formula One and is not necessarily totally applicable for road cars. There are pros and cons to that argument, but I definitely agree -- it is very specific for Formula One. And by putting hybrid cars in Formula One, it is a very good promotional tool to promote the concept of the technology; not necessarily the actual technology, but the concept of the technology to a wider audience in an exciting and interesting way. You can argue either way, which is what we're doing, but I still think it is a positive thing to do. On the back of this program with Flybrid, we are undertaking a number of projects, all of which are highly confidential as you can imagine. There is one that isn't, however, because it is a UK government funded public project; and in simple terms, we are taking a Formula One, Flybrid energy recovery system -- KERS -- and putting it into a Jaguar road car as a research vehicle. The project is being partly funded by the UK government and a consortium of UK companies consisting of Xtrac, Flybrid, Ricardo, Jaguar, Ford, Prodrive and Torotrak. That is a direct benefit of the racing initiative that was done in Formula One and by the end of this year there will be a research vehicle that is driving around with a mechanical energy recovery system -- a Jaguar vehicle. Obviously then Jaguar can choose to take it to market or not.

Are you optimistic about finding solutions for the global energy situation?