Jaguar Land Rover to open new $160 mln R&D centre in UK in 2016

LONDON (Reuters) - British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover on Tuesday said it plans to open a 100 million pounds research and development centre in the UK in 2016 to create the next generation of vehicle technologies.

Based at Warwick University in central England the National Automotive Innovation Campus (NAIC) will be used to develop new technologies for electric cars and vehicle connectivity among other things, JLR said.

The carmaker, owned by Tata Motors , said around 1,000 academics and engineers would work at the centre. Some 200 JLR researchers and engineers are already based at Warwick University.

JLR is the lead partner in the project and will invest 50 million pounds in the project with the remainder coming from the Tata Motors European Technical Centre, Warwick Manufacturing Group and the government's Higher Education Funding Council.

"These collaborative research programmes will harness the best of UK engineering innovation, and with the extra capability the NAIC gives us, you can expect the number and range of new, fresh innovative ideas that we patent, and then take to production in the future, to increase significantly," said JLR's head of research Antony Harper.

Construction of the new centre is due to start in September next year.

(Reporting by Rhys Jones; Editing by Greg Mahlich)