Electric vehicles get double government boost

Research into electric vehicles will receive a boost of £10m thanks to investment from the government-backed Technology Strategy Board, while another initiative will focus on making it easier to charge vehicles on Britain's roads.

In a statement released this week, the board announced that it is backing a competition to award the funding to leading research projects into smarter approaches to electric vehicle design.

The competition is being run under the board's Integrated Delivery Programme – a £200m investment designed to speed up the introduction of low-carbon vehicles on to UK roads.

About 30 companies, which will also invest about £10m in the initiative, and seven universities will take part in the electric development projects.

“We are investing to put the UK at the forefront of low-carbon vehicle technology. A major barrier to the widespread acceptance of electric and hybrid vehicles is the difficulty in balancing the range of the vehicle against the available stored energy," said John Laughlin, the Technology Strategy Board’s Low Carbon Vehicles programme manager.

Laughlin said the work being funded by the board would focus on developing very efficient electric and hybrid vehicles which will make the best use of stored energy reserves.

"Increasing the market acceptance of low-carbon vehicles will contribute to achieving UK and EU climate change targets, while creating significant market opportunities for UK-based companies,” he added.

Examples of successful electric vehicle projects that have already attracted funding from the Technology Strategy Board include the Hybridised Boosted Optimised System with Turbocompound (HyBoost) project.

Led by Ricardo Ltd, it aims to deliver a cost-effective gasoline hybrid with a 30 to 40 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions, to less than 100g/km. Another project, led by Axeon Technologies, is focused on developing high-density battery systems for electric cars.

In a separate announcement this week, the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), a UK company backed by the government, launched an £11m initiative designed to make it easier for drivers to charge plug-in vehicles in a number of major UK cities.

The Joined-Cities Plan aims to help cities across the UK to deploy a network of recharging points.

Commenting on the launch of the project, ETI chief executive David Clarke said that most consumers still need to be convinced about the potential of electric vehicles to compete with petrol equivalents.

"Through the Joined-Cities Plan, we will help to enhance the versatility and ease of recharging. Other aspects of the ETI project will determine what it will take to reach a self-sustaining mass market,” he said.

Also commenting on the plan, London mayor Boris Johnson said moving to using electric vehicles would have a major impact on cutting carbon emissions, improving air quality and reducing noise pollution.

"I want to make it much easier to go electric, which is why in London we are planning to roll out 25,000 charging points. So I'm delighted that the capital is part of the Joined-Cities network helping to speed up the electric revolution across the country," he said.