Motorsport technology will soon have a greater part to play in normal family cars after more than Â£35 million in funding was awarded to companies across the UK. The grants have gone to more than 130 car manufacturers, research centres and technology companies, and are intended to help these groups develop ideas to improve efficiency figures.

One of the largest grants went to a consortium including Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan, which received Â£1.7 million to go towards 'light-weighting' technology. This will see developments from the likes of Formula 1 and space satellites to make passenger cars lighter. In turn, this will use less fuel, improve range, reduce emissions and make the cars better to drive.

Current expectations are that the use of advanced technologies to reduce weight will extend the range of cars such as the Nissan Leaf by up to 25 per cent. The use of extended use of composite materials such as carbon fibre will dramatically cut weight but increase strength, and the plans are to see greater use of them rather than just being the reserve of high-performance cars.

The Â£38.2 million budget comes from Â£30 million of Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) funding and Â£8.2 million from the government's Innovate UK project.

Transport Minister Andrew Jones said: "Our Â£38 million investment will help Britain become a world leader in this exciting and valuable technology sector, creating skilled jobs of the future as part of our long-term economic plan. It will also mean lower running costs for motorists and less fuel consumption, which is good for the environment and our economy.

"This competition continues our Â£600 million commitment by 2020 to support the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles, making journeys cheaper and greener, ensuring the nation is fit for the future."

Roland Meister, Head of Transport at Innovate UK said: "UK businesses have a great opportunity to be at the leading edge of the global drive to increase efficiency and reduce emissions from our vehicles.

"This Â£38 million of government support means that more than 130 innovative organisations right across the country now have the chance to get their ideas off the drawing board and potentially into the cars and trucks of the future, boosting the economy by at least Â£532 million in the process."

Working prototypes will be unveiled by 2018 and are likely to filter into production models by 2020. Alongside the likes of Jaguar Land Rover / Nissan's motorsport materials development plans, other projects include reducing the cost of electric vehicle batteries, improving the efficiency of transmission systems, testing new fuel cells, developing a low cost hybrid system for city cars, and looking at thermal recovery kits that capture waste heat from the exhaust and use it to generate electricity.