At the UK’s first ever Zero Emission Vehicle Summit, Prime Minister Theresa May announced a £106m investment in green vehicles, with a further £500m from industry.
The Zero Emission Vehicle Summit is taking place on 11 September in Birmingham and 12 September in Bedfordshire, UK. It seeks to provide the political impetus to accelerate investment in technology and infrastructure, which in turn will drive the transition towards renewable energy and lower emissions in the transport sector.
Alongside an investment of £106m from the UK government, industry partners have announced more than £500m in investments across the UK which are expected to create more than 1,000 jobs. What’s more, a new international declaration on low emissions which has been signed by 11 countries will engage global partners in the pursuit of clean, sustainable transport.
How will the investments be prioritised for maximum impact?
Priorities for the funding include the creation of an assembly and testing facility in Birmingham, which will employ around 20 highly skilled people by 2020, and a new electrification centre in a new Aston Martin facility in Wales, which will create an additional 200 jobs.
New financing worth around £200m will be allocated to the creation of up to 200 fast charging electric vehicle stations across the UK, and the development of an electric vehicle charging centre of excellence in Warwick, to create the necessary infrastructure for a large-scale transition towards zero-emission electric vehicles.
What did May say at the Zero Emission Vehicle Summit?
In her speech, May discussed the opportunity that the investment represents for the UK to become a world leader in the development of cleaner transport. She said: “[We want] to put the UK at the forefront of the design and manufacturing of zero-emission vehicles, and for all new cars and vans to be, effectively, zero-emission by 2040… Today we have provided over £100 million of funding for innovators in ultra-low emission vehicles and hydrogen technology, with a further £500 million of investment from key industries in this sector.”
In turn, this will be vital to the UK’s efforts to meet its climate change commitments, May added. “These measures will drive the design, use, uptake and infrastructure necessary for cleaner, greener vehicles – and in doing so, it will help us drastically reduce a major contributor to our global warming emissions.”
