Automotive Engineering

In the past five years, automotive technologies have undergone remarkable changes. Electrification and connectivity are now at the centre of the future of the industry. Manufacturers are adapting their engineering practices to meet these evolving demands. They face substantial pressure to streamline development timelines and cut costs by embracing digital engineering processes. The Automotive Engineering programme at Loughborough is designed to equip you with specialised knowledge in areas directly aligned with the dynamic automotive industry and the future of ground transportation.

Our Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering (one of only two in the UK) has been teaching Automotive Engineering and working with major UK industries for over fifty years. This course is based on our heritage of working alongside industry. From the outset, we make use of automotive-specific examples in teaching engineering fundamentals. This is an approach that differs from many other automotive engineering courses in the UK. Our ongoing exchange of knowledge with industry ensures that our taught courses are immediately relevant to the problems faced by industry today.

This course covers topics related to new powertrain architectures and specialist modules including Battery Technology and Machine Intelligence. The course also covers more foundational topics such as Aerodynamics, Materials, Structures and Experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamics. These provide you with a comprehensive knowledge of the underlying and unchanging physics of automotive systems essential to modern automotive engineering.

As an automotive engineer, you will make extensive use of your theoretical and analytical skills. It is also important for you to be able to appreciate the more practical aspects of engineering. Practical activities are integral to our course. For example, you will spend a week at HORIBA MIRA proving ground where you will learn how to collect and analyse vehicle handling, off-road dynamics, noise measurement, braking performance and wet weather driving data. This and many other ‘hands-on’ activities will enable you to put the theory you have learned into practice.

Teamwork and management skills are critical to you as you develop your career and move to more senior positions. During the course you will have many opportunities to develop these skills including working as part of a team to design a vehicle of the future. In your final year you will manage your own original research project to solve a real-world engineering problem.

As these courses are taught within a Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering, our teaching staff are engaged in exciting research into air and ground transport which helps keep our course up-to-date. We bring together outstanding facilities, superb teaching, and strong links with industry to make sure you are completely ready for your future career.

What's the difference between MEng and BEng?

The first two years of the BEng and MEng Automotive Engineering degree share the same format and structure, with a high level of fundamental engineering and automotive specific subjects from day one. The MEng courses differ from the BEng by offering the opportunity to study topics in more detail with the option to study a modern language.

You can choose whether to take a placement year. The MEng course takes four years to complete, or five years with a placement year, while the BEng takes three years, or four years with a placement. The placement is normally taken after the second year, but MEng students can opt to take it after the third year.

It is possible to transfer from a BEng to an MEng up to the end of the second year, providing that the transfer progression criteria have been met.