The UK government has pledged nearly £1 million in support for vehicle retrofit technologies to reduce harmful emissions.
Three technology producers – Eminox, Proventia and Baumot – will receive a total of £971,544, to be awarded between the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 periods, to bring clean air retrofit technologies to market. The applications will cover certain models of coaches and trucks, one taxi and one refuse collection vehicle: commercial buses, trucks and vans are responsible for 38 per cent of the UK’s total carbon dioxide emissions and more than 50 per cent of nitrogen oxide emissions.
The funding has been allocated by the Clean Vehicle Retrofit Accreditation Scheme (CVRAS) as part of the government’s Clean Air Strategy, a programme designed to reduce emissions in the UK’s worst polluted regions. CVRAS is aimed at developing and providing retrofit technology to enable large vehicles which are already on the roads to produce fewer polluting emissions.
Andy Eastlake, Managing Director of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (LowCVP), said: “We need a range of policy tools to tackle the urgent problems associated with air pollution. Adopting electric vehicles or changing to the latest clean new trucks and buses needs to be in operators’ longer-term plans, but we also need more immediate options to deliver cleaner air in the shortest time possible. Developing robust retrofit solutions for ‘hard-to-tackle’ vehicles is an expensive business and this funding will help bring more fully accredited solutions to the market. I’m delighted to see these new solutions in the pipeline and would reiterate that operators must use accredited systems only to meet CAZ requirements. They should not be tempted by a non-approved product: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.”
LowCVP, a nonprofit public-private partnership of organisations throughout the automotive and transport sectors aiming to reduce vehicle carbon emissions and promote opportunities for British businesses, has contributed to the UK’s development of one of the EU’s largest low emission bus fleets through its Low Emission Bus Accreditation Scheme. LowCVP has been working towards expanding its accreditation scheme to include coaches and refuse collection vehicles.
Hello, I’m french and interested in evrything talking about Retrofit, but I don’t see the meaning of “Retrofit” in this post.
What do you mean by “retrofit” ? What is retrofit in UK ? Is it to change the engine of a car ? Or something else ?
In this post I just understand that your goal is reducing diesel gas emission by adding device you’re working on, not electrification of your cars, am I right ?
Hi Legrais,
“Retrofit” means to make changes or additions to a device or vehicle which already exists, as opposed to building entirely new mechanisms. So in this case, cars and trucks in the UK which are powered by petrol or diesel would have devices fitted to them which reduce the emissions they put out. I believe the UK government is also working towards trying to raise the number of electric cars on the road, but as an entirely separate effort.