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Technology Strategy Board to drive Britain's green motoring revolution
* 100 ultra low
carbon demonstration vehicles to be on roads by end of 2009.
*
£10m demonstration will show benefits of new and emerging low
carbon technology in real-world situations.
* Electrification
of road transport, decarbonisation of road vehicles and
academic-led research into new low carbon vehicle technology to
receive £20 million funding boost.
The Technology Strategy Board will unveil details tomorrow of a £10 million investment plan, co-funded by the Department for Transport, which aims to see up to 100 innovative ultra low carbon demonstration vehicles on Britain's roads by the end of next year. This is one of the initiatives announced by the Government today to encourage a mass market in electric and hybrid cars.
The ultra low carbon vehicle demonstration competition will see the 100 innovative cars on the road in several locations around the UK and, through real-world situations, will show the benefits to be gained by using new and emerging low carbon vehicle technology.
Details of three additional research and development competitions, worth an additional £20 million, will also be provided, while the Technology Strategy Board will further announce that it will help co-ordinate a series of public dialogue initiatives to ensure that the ultra low carbon demonstration fully considers the attitudes of consumers.
Commenting on the eve of the UK National Low Carbon Vehicle Event at Millbrook, Bedford on Tuesday (28 October), hosted by Cenex (the UK's Centre of Excellence for low carbon and fuel cell technologies), the Technology Strategy Board's Chief Executive, Iain Gray, said:
"Low carbon vehicle technology is exciting, practical and, most importantly, real. Such vehicles are already on our roads and as the technology continues to improve rapidly, they will only become more effective and more widely used.
"Low carbon vehicles offer the combined advantages of reducing our reliance on oil and reducing emissions. The challenge now is to speed up development of this technology while delivering the benefits to UK business - which is why the Technology Strategy Board is delighted to announce a further £30m of investment in the research, development and demonstration of electric and low carbon vehicles."
The demonstrator and research & development competitions are
the latest initiatives from the Technology Strategy Board's
Low Carbon Vehicle Innovation Platform. The three further research
and development activities will cover:
- Electrification of
road transport (up to £10 million)
- Technologies to
decarbonise road vehicles (approx £7 million)
- University-led
research into lower-carbon vehicle technology (£3 million), funded
by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The Technology Strategy Board will also work closely with the Energy Technologies Institute, which will hold a stakeholder workshop in December to develop a second wave of low carbon vehicle demonstration activity. This builds on the Technology Strategy Board's early pilots and will focus on understanding the requirements of the charging infrastructure.
Notes to Editors
Today's announcements
1. The launch of the ultra low carbon vehicle demonstration competition aims to see up to 100 new innovative cars on the road in several locations around the UK by the end of 2009 and recognises the considerable value of demonstrating new and emerging low carbon vehicle technology in real world situations. The demonstration competition has up to £10m of funding available and will provide a portion of the costs for business led demonstration projects of vehicles with tailpipe emissions of 50g CO2/km or less and a significant electric only range.
2. To ensure that this demonstration fully considers the attitudes of consumers, the Technology Strategy Board will also undertake a series of public dialogue initiatives. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) will provide support to this activity through the Sciencewise ERC, providing the networking across Government to ensure that the views of consumers are taken into account in the development of Government policy in this area.
3. The three new competitions form part of the Low Carbon Vehicle Integrated Delivery Programme (see below).
4. The first element recognises that electrification of road transport has been identified by stakeholders as a critical area of R&D to achieve a longer term vision of decarbonisation. A competition worth up to £10m will therefore look to support business led collaborative R&D in all areas relevant to the development of enabling systems and sub-system technologies to deliver more cost effective and higher performing all-electric and hybrid vehicles for mass market applications.
5. The second element recognises that technologies to decarbonise road vehicles go much wider than electrification alone. New and lighter materials, more efficient engines and vehicle technologies to accommodate lower carbon fuels will also have an important role to play. An open technology competition worth between £5 and £10m will look to support wider collaborative R&D projects covering all vehicle technologies capable of delivering large scale carbon reductions in the coming decades.
6. The final element provides funding for the underpinning basic university-led research on lower carbon vehicle technology, which could potentially be taken forward into collaborative research and development activity in the future. Under this, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council will be committing £3m towards academic-led research.
Low Carbon Vehicles Innovation Platform
1. The Technology Strategy Board's Low Carbon Vehicles Innovation Platform, launched in May 2007, is the key delivery agent for the Government's research & development funding on low carbon vehicles.
2. With initial funding from the Technology Strategy Board, the
Department for Transport (DfT) and the Engineering & Physical
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Platform, managed by the
Technology Strategy Board, has two key goals:
- To support
technology development and innovation to meet demanding medium and
long term targets for large scale emissions reductions from road
transport
- To help UK industry meet and benefit from the
coming global transition to much lower carbon road transport.
3. A first competition under the Platform was launched in September 2007 and, in May 2008, 16 successful projects were announced, benefiting from a total of £23m of funding from Technology Strategy Board and DfT. At the Technology Strategy Board's recent annual conference, Innovate08, the Secretary of State announced the next phase of the Innovation Platform - the Low Carbon Vehicle Integrated Delivery Programme.
4. The Integrated Delivery Programme is a new £200 million investment programme, jointly funded by Government and business that will help to speed up the introduction of new low carbon vehicles onto Britain's roads. The Programme will co-ordinate the UK's low carbon vehicle activity from initial strategic research through collaborative research and development, leading to the production of demonstration vehicles.
5. To date, the Department for Transport, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Advantage West Midlands and One North East have agreed to invest in the programme, while further support will be sought from other Regional Development Agencies and the Devolved Administrations.
6. The programme will feature:
a. A strategic programme of university based research targeted
towards future technologies for which there are good prospects of
commercialisation in the long term;
b. An industry led
advisory panel that will help shape the technological direction
and priorities for the programme. It will be composed of
representatives of leading elements of the UK automotive industry
and low carbon vehicle technology developers, as well as relevant
academic experts;
c. Flexible rolling opportunities for
industry to seek support for high quality collaborative research
and development proposals which take technology through to system
or vehicle concept readiness;
d. Funding to support trialling
and demonstration of particularly innovative lower carbon vehicle options.
Further details will be available on the Technology Strategy Board website - http://www.innovateuk.org.
Issued by
Nick Sheppard
Media Relations
Manager
Technology Strategy Board
Block B, North Star
House
North Star Avenue
Swindon, SN2 1JF
Switch: +44
(0)1793 442700
e-mail: nick.sheppard@tsb.gov.uk
