Twenty years in engineering — braking systems in Formula 1, leadership roles at four vehicle manufacturers, fail-operational ASIL-D steer-by-wire carried from first principles to acquisition, and the technical standards behind UK police fleets.
Chassis Autonomy · 2021–2025
Co-founded, built and sold to Kongsberg Automotive
From start-up to exit
Non-dilutive grants · 100% bid success
Patent families
Engineering team scaled · UK and Sweden
Twenty years on systems where failure is a number you have to design for, not a word you are allowed to avoid.
Carbon-carbon brakes in Formula 1, where a wrong assumption ends up in the wall at the end of the straight. Then braking systems for McLaren Automotive, Bentley, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan and NEVS — a different problem entirely. An F1 disc is designed for outright performance and has to survive two hours on a Sunday; a road car’s brakes have to work for a decade, in every condition, for a driver who has had no training at all.
Then four years building Chassis Autonomy from first principles to acquisition by a global Tier-1 — an engineering team scaled to twenty-five across two countries, sixteen patent families, £3.2M of grant funding, and a steer-by-wire stack taken to production readiness.
The discipline is the same wherever it goes: decide what has to be true, prove it, and design so that being wrong is survivable. It applies to a police force signing off vehicles that must not be outperformed by the ones they are chasing, and to a founder whose technical judgement has to survive contact with a customer.
Where it goes
Foundation brakes on the Bentley Continental GT. Attribute lead on the Jaguar F-Type. A chassis cost reduction programme at Nissan returning over €24M a year. Head of brakes at NEVS across all electric vehicle programmes.
The full recordRisk-based methods for the Met and South Yorkshire Police, spanning procurement, vehicle evaluation and maintenance — building the capability for fleet decisions to be made on evidence rather than precedent, and coaching the teams to carry it on without us.
The full recordCo-founder, group CTO and board director of Chassis Autonomy — modular steer-by-wire spun out of NEVS, where Thomas led the squad that built the first prototype, and carried to production readiness before its acquisition by Kongsberg Automotive in 2025. He also led the commercial side, every funding round, the IP strategy, and an engineering team scaled to twenty-five across two countries.
The full recordCurrently
We take on select engagements: technical due diligence for investors backing hardware, C-level advice to companies scaling safety-critical products, programme leadership for manufacturers and their suppliers, and vehicle technology for emergency fleets.
A named engineer with a delivery record, not a pyramid of graduates on a day rate. Larger programmes are delivered by a team that Thomas assembles and leads.
