Automotive innovation has historically been one of Britain's stronger hands. We may no longer own any mass production car companies, but we still have some of the best automotive firms in the world. The UK remains the dominant source of innovation in F1 and still produces some of the world's best sports cars, including Bentley, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Lotus and the proposed new McLaren.

But the industry has taken a beating during this recession. Many have lost jobs or suffered pay cuts. As painful as this has been, it has provided a much-needed wake-up call. Several revolutions are about to strike the industry at once. The pressure to address sustainability and end reliance on fossil fuels means in engine research alone there are more potential solutions than the industry can support. Meanwhile, material research continues to produce tougher, lighter cars. Car-sharing schemes and different approaches to leasing and ownership continue to change our relationship with what's parked—or not parked—in the drive.

All this uncertainty was highlighted at the Autocar Courland Next Generation Award, for which I was on the judging panel. This is a competition aimed at finding the best ideas and the brightest young minds. The challenge for competing students is to identify the next big revolution and discuss its potential impact. The winner gets £6,000, plus the sort of career kick-start most can only dream of, with placements in sponsor firms, such as Ford, Harley-Davidson, Honda and Marshall Motors.

So what were the biggest ideas? It was no surprise that sustainability was top of the agenda and featured in all the presentations. There was an apparently simple, but potentially game-changing magnetic engine; a plan for modular cars that allow consumers to design their own car, change it whenever they get bored and thus keep a car for life; and a scheme to capture the true whole-life emissions of cars combined with a slightly potty scheme to disassemble cars on anti-production lines and send the parts back to their manufacturers. All the students felt that addressing the green agenda was the priority.

I'm no engineer and some of the details presented were beyond me. Some schemes seemed brilliant, others totally whacky, while others offered a useful re-think of what's already done. What all of them showed was that despite the gloom, Britain's future as a home for automotive innovation is secure.

For more details of the Autocar-Courland Awards visit www.autocar.co.uk

Richard Cree

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