16 January/February 2025 | E-Mobility Engineering The advanced powertrain chief engineer of Jaguar Land Rover got into EVs before EVs were even a thing. He tells Will Gray how far things have come Green guru If you want to understand the evolution of electric vehicles (EVs), there are few better to speak to than Jaguar Land Rover’s advanced powertrain chief engineer, John Stamford. Having started his career developing ECUs for diesel engines, he got involved in EV development before EVs became a thing. The initial technologies he worked on achieved marginal gains, but they sowed the seeds for the future, and he has been involved in almost every generation of the EV evolution since. “I’ve seen a lot of things come and go, and throughout that whole story, battery technology is what has paced development,” he says. “The electronics systems were there early on, although their integration and other ancillary systems have improved. The motor and inverter technology has been adapted, and applied more appropriately, but it’s the batteries that really underpin the whole journey and they are still not where they need to be just yet.” Like many engineers, Stamford’s formative years were spent building with Lego and Meccano, but that gave way to a passion for electronics. Inspired by the early computers and electronic kits that his maths teacher father brought home for him to investigate, along with the Open University programmes he bookended his days with on BBC2, Stamford built a cathode ray oscilloscope in his early teens. Later, he secured a place at Newcastle University to study electronics, and it was here that his research and development skills were honed, with him building a dyno and control system from scratch in the basement. “We had been gifted an engine, but we had to set up all the systems around it,” he says. “We replaced the existing standard engine management system with our own improved sequential-injection version, and spent a lot of time getting that operational. I’ve always been very practical and my ability to visualise good solutions has been with me from the early days.” Stamford’s first job, working on ways to replace mechanical fuel systems with electrical solutions on Perkins’ diesel engines, was a world away from the EV industry, but it opened his eyes to what could be possible and to the disadvantages of fossil fuels. Having seen the opportunity, he moved to Wavedriver in 1997, where he was involved in developing an electric bus for the 2000 Olympics. It worked, to a point, but it demonstrated the shortcomings in the area at the time. “The world wasn’t ready for electric vehicles back then,” he recalls. “They had lead acid batteries, induction motors and an advanced inverter/ charger drive, but although they put their system into many different vehicles, all the ancillary systems that normally run off the engine weren’t electrified, so we ended up having additional motors driving belts, running compressors and pumps, and they just sat there, on most of the time, consuming energy and reducing range.” Stamford soon returned to the diesel world, joining Motorola to lead the development of its ECUs for heavy Dyson battery electric vehicle (Image courtesy of Dyson)
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