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Driven by the need to reduce business risk, the next decade will see increasing pressure on vehicle and component manufacturers, not only to improve reliability and reduce costs, but also to provide formal demonstrations of product reliability and safety achievement in advance of product launch. In addition, assessment of product reliability early in the design stage has the benefit of shortening lead times and reducing the need for expensive validation testing. Current tools to support such demonstrations are strongly dependent on the availability of failure data generated in service or from extensive testing. Such data are not always available or easily adapted to meet the needs of the designer, especially when the product is new or contains a degree of novelty. The research described in this paper is funded through the IMI Foresight Vehicle Programme and is focused on the development of reliability tools applicable at the design stage.