UK government funding to support the country’s ongoing development of self-driving technologies has been announced.
This follows last week’s announcement of a £4.5bn investment for British manufacturing to boost economic growth in the sector.
Funding will be delivered via the Advanced Manufacturing Plan, which sets out the government’s plans for investing in the future of manufacturing, opening markets and removing obstacles for business.
It sets out eight sectors regarded as key to economic growth, energy security and levelling up, including up to £150m for connected and automated mobility (CAM) to 2030.
CAM funding by the government will be matched by industry and seeks to build on around some £600m of joint investment with industry in more than 100 projects across the UK since 2015.
READ MORE: Grants for UK projects to study feasibility of self-driving mass transit
According to the government, the latest research suggests the economic benefits of CAM for the UK could be £66bn per year and 342,000 additional jobs by 2040 if it intervenes appropriately in policy, regulation, funding (de-risking globally mobile investment), skills, and public communication.
As announced in the King’s Speech on Tuesday 07 November, the government’s new Automated Vehicles Bill aims to deliver one of the most comprehensive legal frameworks of its kind for self-driving vehicles.
Thus, the £150m in funding, supported by enabling legislation, is regarded as crucial to ensuring a UK CAM sector that is broader than privately-owned vehicles and robo-taxis, and therefore includes the logistics, mass transit, mining, agriculture, and defence sectors.
