Would the Minister like to give us a few thoughts on what she thinks the opportunities are for synthetic fuels, sustainable fuels and hydrogen? How will they fit in around her battery vision?
My right hon. Friend’s views on electric vehicles and zero emissions are well documented. As I mentioned, a hydrogen strategy is also in place. I have been to a number of projects where vehicles are using hydrogen to ensure that that technology is exploited and that there is supply and demand in the chain, too. We are looking at sustainable alternative fuels not only in the automotive sector but in the aviation sector, so it is not just in that space. All alternative fuels will be investigated.
The future of the auto sector is electric—although I know that my right hon. Friend would like it to be much wider—automated and connected. The UK is well placed to consolidate its position among global R&D leaders as these technologies begin to commercialise, creating jobs and valuable new services for our businesses and communities. Our flagship Commercialising Connected and Autonomous Mobility programme will bring benefits across the UK. The Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicle’s recent £66 million Commercialising CAM programme 2025 aims to create an early commercial market that could be worth £42 billion by 2035. This innovation will save lives, create jobs, enable more efficient movement of people and goods, address chronic driver shortages, and better link under-served communities to vital services. As part of the programme, on 5 September, I was pleased to announce £18.5 million of public grants to 13 projects and 43 organisations across the UK to strengthen our capabilities in the CAM supply chain. I then had first-hand experience of a self-driving vehicle with Wayve, near King’s Cross. These technologies are here. They are no longer something from science fiction. Today, we can take automated bus journeys in Didcot and Edinburgh, with more world-class automated passenger and freight services to follow in the coming months.
In addition, through Government policies, we are enabling future mobility in the UK. We launched the full local electric vehicle infrastructure fund in March 2023. Following a pilot, it provides a further £381 million over the next two financial years to deliver tens of thousands of local charge points across England. Furthermore, to enable long-distance journeys, the rapid charging fund will future-proof electrical capacity at strategic locations to prepare the network for a fully electric car and van fleet—not just cars.
September 21, 2023
Excuse me but why is there a driver shortage when so many folk are unemployed?
Yet another wonderful innovation that I REALLY hope is more efficient than my broadband…
We will certainly be in trouble if it isn’t.
September 21, 2023
All of this puts me in mind of that great cartoon vid “Beyond the Reset”.
Well worth a blood-chilling watch.
Not rude, nothing to knicker-twist about but very prescient I am certain.
September 21, 2023
Maybe, following her pilot, Ms Ghani would consider an electrically-powered jumbo jet, travelling on lightning to reduce battery weight.
September 21, 2023
And all automated.
NO pilot.
Would it only work in a thunderstorm?
Didn’t Franklin do similar with a kite?
September 21, 2023
Ms Nus Ghani BA Gov. and Politics Birmingham Poly later Birmingham City University. So I think we can safely infer she has zero understanding of energy, science, tramsport or industry – though being a government minister in these areas is just fine it seems.
September 21, 2023
The future of the auto sector is electric says Nas Gahni :- So how does she know this? I suppose she thinks HS2 and Covid vaccines even for children was great too? But perhaps but other options might well be better with other tech breakthroughs. We need a big leap in battery tech. The price, charge times, weight, volume, battery life, limited range, shortage of materials for battery manufacture, loss of power while standing, fire risks, loss of power when charging, higher insurance costs as more easily written off… are still all rather big problems.
September 21, 2023
Then we have the issue that, in cities especially, where EVs make more sense, most people have no where to park and charge them over night. Then we have lack of grid capacity and no spare low carbon electricity anyway.
September 21, 2023
Wedding the car to electricity has not been thought out in terms of electricity supply and distribution. Never mind the supply of market acceptable vehicles and the slave labour production of battery metals.
As for the fully automated car, wiser to start with the Tube and Trains.
September 21, 2023
The new fuels, filtering systems, DPS filters, are killing vehicles at 100,000 miles, and new engines are required. Diesel vehicles with registration plates from 20 onwards have a much shorter life.
September 21, 2023
The minister has a closed mind when saying the future of the automotive sector is electric. Unless the Government has a secret strategy to curtail the mobility of us oiks, of course.
September 21, 2023
R & D in the UK will be of marginal benefit to the UK. As any advanced intellectual property we invent will quickly leak to China and India where their manufacturing will massively undercut the UK, as they dont have the massive overheads of the electricity costs and anti pollution and safety kit the UK mandates.
September 21, 2023
Would it be unkind to say Ms. Ghani’s view that “The future of the auto sector is electric” chines with Government dictat but not consumer preferences and perhaps (should the risks crystallize against) not with technology? And further unkind to point out that synthetic fuels (as Porsche partnering with Siemens Energy for example is producing at its plant in Chile, at present only for its own consumption pending the granting of exemptions for CO2 neutral fuels from bans on fuels with carbon outputs) could well have a significant conntribution to make.
September 21, 2023
‘The future of the auto sector is electric’
‘[Nus Ghani] studied at Birmingham City University, graduating with a BA in government and politics, and later gained a master’s degree at Leeds University in international relations’ — Wikipedia.
I wonder if in the privacy of her own thoughts, the minister has the knowledge to reason that the line she is having to peddle is infeasible. If not, then she cannot push back against other net-zero ministers or the blob.
September 21, 2023
Ghani hasn’t a clue, has she ?
The future of commercial vehicles has to be Hydrogen or sustainable synthetic fuel because the weight of batteries necessary for an electric HGV would cut the carrying capacity by 50% and the price per truck would be astronomical. JCB have already developed a suitable Hydrogen-powered engine for their diggers.
If we are going to have a hydrogen infrastructure for trucks, we might just as well use it for cars as well, in which case all the disadvantages of the pure battery-EV will be eliminated.
How can Sunak expect the manufacturers to hit his already- over-optimistic EV sales targets when he sensibly extended the end date for IC engined cars by five years ? All those Remainers complaining about the five-years extension are conveniently forgetting that all this does is bring us into line with the EU !
September 21, 2023
Worryingly this is clearly a department that has been captured by the green lobby and the car industry. It seems to have no concern for consumer choice or cost. The autonomous elements that are already being added to cars are hugely expensive to replace and repair. They require very expensive ADAS calibration, there is even talk of cars needing this for simple cheap items to be replaced. The car industry will only be too happy to see complicated electric cars in the future as it will eliminate much of the competition that OEM dealers and their expensive replacement parts face currently.
September 21, 2023
Quote:
“All alternative fuels will be investigated.
The future of the auto sector is electric…”
Note the “will be” (so nothing being done now).
And the assertion that the future is electric, nothing to back it up, no consideration of others’ views or points made. If the future were synthetic fuels, there would be no range issues, no need for new infrastructure, no limitations on charging points – we would carry on as now, just filling up with different fuels (hydrogen may need changes since H2-based fuels may not be storable at ambient temperatures).
Also, it allows the heating question to be answered, since gas boilers can run on hydrogen.
It’s clear these people hve made up their minds, with no evidence required, and will enforce these unnecessary changes on us. One has to wonder why.
September 21, 2023
The DLR is driverless. The Victoria line could have been driverless in the 1960s, but the unions threatened to shut down the entire tube network unless driver jobs were kept and paid a boredom money bonus. Many airports have driverless transport between terminals and car parks. These are all fixed systems suited to rail where complications with other vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians and animals are avoided, and where signalling and position monitoring allow traffic control and collision avoidance.
The rail network should be repurposed for the 21st century to take driverless truckloads and smaller passenger vehicles than whole trains to provide flexibility that scheduled services do not. Rail would be replaced by dedicated roadway so that vehicles could also operate away from the track when driven. Drivers would only be needed to handle the last miles that the rail network does not cover.
Until such a system is proven it seems rash to attempt to handle driving on normal, potholed streets and rural roads with all the hazards that programmers fail to foresee.