Ricardo orders rise on electric and hybrid vehicle projects

Ricardo has made a strong start to its financial year after an increase in orders connected with electric or hybrid vehicles.

The engineering company said orders in the three months to the end of September were £106m, £33m higher than a year earlier.

A quarter of total orders in the first quarter were related to electric or hybrid vehicles compared with 17% a year before.

Ricardo develops products and advises companies in the transport, energy and scarce resources industries.

Significant orders for the first quarter included two large multi-year programmes for Chinese customers covering engineering of an electric vehicle and the transmission for a hybrid vehicle.

In the UK Ricardo won business for road trials of a commercial vehicle platooning project in the UK. Platooning connects a convoy of semi-automated trucks through wireless technology so that all the vehicles are controlled by the lead vehicle.

Orders in the quarter included a £6m contribution from Control Point, the US defence business Ricardo bought in September.

Dave Shemmans, Ricardo's chief executive, said: "We are very pleased with the start to the new financial year with the strong order intake reflecting both organic growth and a good contribution from our recent acquisition of Control Point […] The proportion of orders in respect of electric and hybrid vehicles continues to increase. We look forward to continued progress in the rest of the year."

At the end of the first quarter the order book stood at £269m, up from £231m a year earlier. Ricardo said there are more long-term projects, giving it a clearer view of prospects over the medium term.

Ricardo shares were up more than 2% to 857.44 just after midday on Wednesday.