Engineer awarded $360,000 in government grants to design travel coffee cup

IT WILL surely be the most expensive cup of coffee in Australia - a government-funded design awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money.

coffee travel cup

IT WILL surely be the most expensive cup of coffee in Australia.

Taxpayers may choke on their lattes to find out the government has awarded a $360,000 grant to a Melbourne engineer to design a travel coffee cup he hopes will be a world first.

More than just a Keep Cup, Robert Wilson says his top secret designs will change the way people drink their coffee on the run.

The ambitious inventor is confident he has devised a cup with features never seen before and the government has decided to back his project - granting him funds from the $30 million Automotive New Markets Program (ANMP) jointly funded by the Australian and Victorian governments.

For now Mr Wilson is keeping his ideas concealed before he can patent elements of the design.

His grant has been labelled a waste of taxpayer money, but Mr Wilson - whose company Crintand Pty Ltd creates plastic and fibreglass items - said it was at the core of the program's initiative to diversify Australian companies like his that supply to the automotive industry.

"I don't want to go into too much (detail). It is quite novel, so I really don't want to say any more than that," he said.

"If we can achieve its design aims, it will be really something. It will perform better than anything on the market and should have worldwide applications."

He said it had been designed with the international market in mind because the domestic market was "not big enough to sustain the investment".

Centre for Independent Studies policy analyst Alexander Philipatos said justification behind the coffee cup funding was "dubious" and the project should be supported by private enterprise.

He said it was the latest waste of money from the program that has already awarded $500,000 for the development of more effective reversing and parking sensors and $400,000 to a Victorian manufacturing plant to produce Tomcars.

"The coffee cup example is the most obvious example of waste," he said.

But the funding opened up by the ANMP was only available for "those directly engaged in automotive manufacturing in Australia" and helped them "diversify into new markets" a spokeswoman for Innovation Minister Kim Carr said.

"This project satisfies those aims," she said.

The $360,000 in funding is the total amount Mr Wilson had sought but he said it was only half of what the project will cost.

"Ultimately your house is always on the line ... if it goes bust then they knock on my door," he said of the risks of the major investment.

"At the moment I am (confident). This is the nature of the business - if you don't do these things (take risks) you don't get the sales.

"It's a calculated decision based upon what I've done in the past."

Mr Wilson's project will be completed within two years, with the grant stipulating a deadline of June 2015.

AUTOMOTIVE NEW MARKETS PROGRAM

GRANT AMOUNT - GRANT RECIPIENT - PROJECT SUMMARY

$1,100,000 - SWS Australia Pty Limited - Establishment of the SWSA Global Centre of Excellence

$1,000,000 - Australian Arrow Pty Ltd - Commission full service local electrical wiring harness design, engineering &manufacture

$1,000,000 - Chassis Brakes International (Australia) Pty Ltd - Design and validate automotive braking components for the Asian region

$860,000 - Backwell IXL Pty Ltd - Provide Australian made parts for the installation of the next generation of large-scale PV solar plants specifically designed for Australia's remote regions

$705,412 - Harrop Engineering Australia Pty Ltd - Development of forced induction and traction control products for global vehicle platforms

$650,000 - Australian Precision Technologies Pty Ltd - The introduction of leading edge technology for the production of complex components for the automotive, aerospace, defence and mining sectors

$600,000 - Precise Global Pty Ltd - Development of niche services aligned to core capability and commercialisation of own products

$580,000 - Quality Plastics &Tooling Pty Ltd - The acquisition of electric moulding machines with robotics and automation

$500,000 - Robert Bosch (Australia) Pty Ltd - Development of a potentially lifesaving Backover Avoidance System

$500,000 - Hella Australia Pty Ltd - High intensity LED flood lamp

$400,000 - MtM Pty Ltd - Development, engineering and manufacture of Tomcar in Australia

$400,000 - Ceramet Pty Ltd - Solar energy component project

$360,250 - Crintand Pty Ltd trading as Palm Products - Development of the Marc Newson coffee travel cup and child cup

$261,387 - Lumen Australia Pty Ltd - Development of a reconfigurable electronic control unit platform

$108,350 - FMP Group (Australia) Pty Limited - Development of new FMP software technology for the Australian Aftermarket with global application potential

Total program: $30 million

Grants already awarded: 15 totalling $9 million

Source: Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education