£15m competition seeks to encourage greener freight vehicles

Companies are being invited to compete for up to £15m of funding to develop technology to reduce harmful emissions from freight. The government hopes the projects it backs could see materials that make vehicles lighter, or improve the efficiency of engines or batteries.

“We have made important progress in lowering emissions and are always looking at further ways of improving air quality,” said transport minister Jesse Norman. “Lorries cause a third of the UK’s transport CO2 emissions and simple new technologies can have the greatest impact in reducing the harmful pollutants of freight.

“This funding will give UK companies the chance to lead the world in developing important innovations to improve air quality across the country. The government is continuing to find innovative ways of improving air quality across the country and the funding comes just a month after the Air quality plan.”

The competition has been developed with Innovate UK and will help the government achieve its ambition to be a global leader in electric vehicle technology and to see all new vehicles emission free by 2040.

Simon Edmonds, director manufacturing and materials at Innovate UK, said: “We welcome this significant further investment in zero emission research and development funding, in particular its focus on freight and commercial vehicles as this is a major opportunity for UK companies to drive forward innovations The first of the projects in the government’s low emission freight and logistics trial, announced earlier this year, are now using new electric and hydrogen dual-fuel vehicles on our roads. By mid-2018, more than 300 of these low emission vehicles will be on UK roads.”

Since 2010, the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and Innovate UK have invested more than £300m in research and development, targeted at improving technologies for ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs), which has unlocked a further £200m of private sector investment.

The competition is the 14th in the joint Innovate UK and OLEV integrated delivery programme and will be open for applications today. Details of how to apply will be published on the Innovate UK website.

The number of ultra-low emission vehicles on UK roads now stands at more than 118,000 registered to date, with more than 11,000 registered between April and June this year.