Over £70 million of matched funding between the government and industry is being leveraged to turbocharge the UK’s clean transport sector.
With £73 million of new funding in total available, a number of game-changing projects are already in the pipeline for vital financial development support, including an innovative new heavy tractor design that will run on power from farm waste – the first of its kind in the world.
The funding will be used to develop a range of clean transport technologies and to support up to 3,300 new skilled jobs in the sector, whilst helping to drive the UK’s economic growth forward in the coming decade.
Britain is investing heavily in clean energy and related sectors – such as clean transport and construction – to help meet its challenging net-zero carbon goals, as well as create hundreds of thousands of skilled new jobs, develop world-leading capabilities in renewables and related ‘clean’ technologies, and improve the energy security of supply.
In many instances, the government is providing targeted funding on a matched basis, with private industry matching every public pound with a pound of private investment. Investors are keen to utilise the value and economic potential of these green projects.
The identified projects for the first wave of funding are being developed across the UK as part of a wider drive to create an end-to-end supply chain for clean vehicles in Britain. Five projects will be funded to begin with, supporting over 3,000 jobs. The projects will include the production of powerful and efficient motors, finding new methods for harnessing and storing renewable fuel, and developing new materials to slash the transport industry’s carbon footprint.
The funding is providing support through the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) Collaborative Research and Development programme, which has been created to help businesses and organisations develop cutting-edge zero-carbon and low-carbon technology for the automotive industry.
Grant Shapps, the business secretary, said that Britain’s automotive industry was already world-leading, and has created thousands of jobs across the country. He said that it was vital to accelerate the development of new technologies to support its future growth and success, whilst making roads greener, cleaner and more affordable.
The projects that will receive the initial joint funding are HVS in Glasgow, which will receive £30 million to pioneer an HGV tractor with hydrogen fuel cells; CNH Industrial in Essex, which is looking to develop methane-powered heavy tractors; and Toyota in Derbyshire, which is receiving £11 million to develop a version of its Hilux pickup truck that uses hydrogen fuel cells.
Additionally, Contellium in Slough will gain £10 million to provide new solutions for aluminium recycling, and Electrified Automation in Somerset will be granted £6 million to upscale a new electric motor manufacturing process that is designed to be vastly more efficient, powerful and cost-effective than existing market offers.
This round of funding supports a broader programme of work and finance to develop the automotive industry, including funding for battery research. You can find out more about the programme of funding and support that’s targeting the automotive sector’s bid to go green at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/more-than-70-million-to-turbocharge-the-future-of-clean-transport
