Innovate UK

DRIVE35 Scale-up Fund Drawdown 5

Large capital grants from the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, delivered by Innovate UK and the Advanced Propulsion Centre, for UK businesses scaling up manufacturing of zero emission vehicle technologies at pilot or demonstration scale. A UK registered business must lead, alone or in a consortium, and request £2.5 million to £20 million of grant on total eligible costs of over £5 million. The grant covers up to 50% of costs for SMEs and 30% for large businesses, and applicants must unlock private co-investment of at least twice the grant, with up to nine months after the offer to raise it. Assessment includes a value for money appraisal by government economists and in-person interviews in Coventry.

Apply on the funder’s site

You could get: £2,500,000 – £20,000,000
Closes in: 17 days left; 4 November
Effort: Heavy; budgets, references, often several stages

Who can apply

Only a UK registered business of any size can lead a project or apply alone; research and technology organisations and academic institutions cannot lead or work alone
Collaborators can be UK registered businesses, academic institutions, charities, not for profits, public sector organisations or RTOs, and in a collaboration the lead and at least one other organisation must claim funding
Non-funded partners can include EU and other non-UK organisations, and subcontractors are allowed (with a detailed case for overseas ones)
Businesses can lead or collaborate on any number of applications
The grant request must be between £2.5 million and £20 million, total eligible costs at least £5 million, and the project must last at least 12 months, start from 1 June 2027 and end by 31 March 2030; projects outside these limits need approval by email to competitions@apcuk.co.uk at least 10 working days before the deadline
Applicants must show how the grant will unlock private investment of at least twice the grant request (other government grants do not count)
Every funded participant pays a 3.5% industrial contribution to the APC on each grant payment
Organisations in financial difficulty, or with an overdue APC industrial contribution, cannot be funded
Work must be done and exploited in the UK

What it funds

Scale-up projects to engineer, create or convert, and validate process development and manufacturing capability at pilot or demonstration scale, for on-vehicle technologies in:

Electrical energy storage, including batteries, supercapacitors, their components, management and integrated systems
Electric machines and associated driveline
Power electronics, including Vehicle to Everything (V2X)
Internal combustion engines for off-road applications using non-fossil fuels, supporting a transition to zero emissions
Light weighting materials and manufacturing processes
Fuel cell systems and associated balance of plant
Hydrogen storage and management systems
Zero emission vehicle assembly
Within that scope: upstream supply chain (raw materials, components, subassemblies), circularity and design for disassembly, and digital transformation, manufacturing process decarbonisation and lean manufacturing
Activities: facility planning and engineering, fabrication and construction, equipment creation, conversion, procurement, installation and commissioning, process development, quality control and assurance, APQP up to production launch, staff training, design for manufacture (no more than 50% of eligible costs), UK supply chain development, test and validation, dissemination, and limited commercial activity
Eligible costs: labour, overheads, materials, subcontracting, travel and subsistence, capital equipment, capitalised labour, other capital, capital utilisation, indirect costs, and capital property costs such as construction, fit-out and professional fees

grant covers up to 50% of eligible costs for micro, small and medium businesses and up to 30% for large businesses; research organisations doing non-economic work can share up to 10% of total eligible costs. Projects must target on-highway vehicles or off-highway vehicles and non-road mobile machinery.

What it will not fund

Projects not focused primarily on developing and validating manufacturing processes and assets
Grant requests above 50% of total project costs for an SME or 30% for a large business
Projects not aligned with the UK Industrial Strategy
Projects without a robust plan to enter the zero emission vehicle supply chain
Projects not of future benefit to the automotive sector
Small personal mobility applications such as e-scooters, e-bikes or other low-powered devices
Projects that do not lead to significant business or production scale-up
Technologies too immature to scale with increasing market demand
Fossil-fuelled internal combustion technology
Fuel retail or wholesale fuel supply
Development or production of low carbon fuels
Production of hydrogen
Off-vehicle charging infrastructure
Energy retail or wholesale energy supply
Projects focused primarily on digital or data technologies
Speculative site enabling projects
Working capital for commercial production
Materials sold as part of limited commercial activity
Costs incurred outside the live phase of the project
Contingency costs
Fees for audit or accountancy reports required by the grant
Land or property purchase, including Land Registry fees and Stamp Duty Land Tax
The 3.5% APC industrial contribution
Projects dependent on export performance or on domestic inputs usage

How to apply

Read the competition brief and the Innovation Funding Service guidance; the pre-recorded briefing and slides from 14 August 2026 are available, and the APC can give informal guidance on scope
If your grant request or duration falls outside the limits, email a justification to competitions@apcuk.co.uk at least 10 working days before the deadline
Invite any collaborators into the Innovation Funding Service
Complete the project details, 29 application questions with their required PDF appendices, and the Value for Money workbook (question 21)
Each organisation enters its own finances (academics use TRAC)
Submit by 11am on 4 November 2026; you can reopen and resubmit up to the deadline
If invited to interview (1 December 2026), answer the economic feedback questions by 17 December 2026, attend a BIST value for money discussion on 7 January 2027, and by 8 January 2027 submit responses to technical feedback, your slides and attendee list
Attend an in-person interview at the APC offices in Coventry between 19 and 22 January 2027: a 30-minute presentation and up to 60 minutes of questions, allowing up to four hours

Innovate UK estimates about a 30% chance of success. Applications do not carry over to Drawdown 6, planned to open the next working day after this one closes. Question 29 lets you opt in to having your application shared with the National Wealth Fund for finance.

Have ready

Impact track record table on the template (question 7), one A4 page PDF
Appendices for questions 9 to 20 and 22 to 27, each a PDF of up to two to four A4 pages, including market evidence, product evidence, a market entry matrix, a TRL and MRL roadmap, a Gantt chart, work breakdown and milestone plan, risk register, cost table, supply chain evidence, current and future organisation charts, leadership biographies, investment evidence, a 10-year financial model with cash flow, and evidence for additionality, UK investment, jobs, emissions and production volumes
Completed Value for Money workbook in Excel (question 21)
If invited to interview: written response to assessor feedback (up to 15 A4 pages), written response to economic feedback (up to 10 A4 pages on the template provided), PowerPoint slides (up to 30) and an attendee list (up to nine people)
After a grant offer: evidence of committed co-investment, such as a signed shareholders' agreement, binding investment offer, binding loan agreement or confirmed corporate budget

content over the appendix page limits is not assessed, and everything must be legible at 100% zoom.

More like this

Other grants open to organisations like yours.