Government offers £10 million incentive to make UK hub for driverless cars
The Government has announced plans to invest in research into autonomous vehicles, in an effort to make the UK a world-leader in the development of driverless cars – with a £10 million cash incentive to any town or city that builds a test site for autonomous vehicles.
The £10 million fund will be awarded to a town or city that best develops itself as a testing ground for such vehicles. The news comes as part of chancellor George Osborne’s 2013 Autumn Statement – alongside plans to scrap the car road tax disc and freeze fuel duty.
The report continued: “driverless cars are innovative technology that will change the way the world’s towns and cities look and the way people travel; they present opportunities for the British automotive industry in the manufacture of the cars and the wider science and engineering sectors in the design of towns.”
Unveiled in its newly published National Infrastructure Plan, the Government said it would “conduct a review, reporting at the end of 2014, to ensure that the legislative and regulatory framework demonstrates to the world’s car companies that the UK is the right place to develop and test driverless cars”.
Milton Keynes is already experimenting with driverless pods – with plans to introduce a trial in 2015. Within two years it is hoped that visitors to Milton Keynes will be able to hire a pod using a smartphone app, which will then transport them along the town’s wide pavements.
Oxford University is currently the UK’s leading centre in driverless cars, being the base for the Mobile Robotics Group, which is conducting research using an adapted Nissan Leaf electric car.
The plan would see the UK vying against other countries, which already have driverless car programs underway. In the United States, Google has covered more than 100,000 miles in an autonomous Toyota Prius, while Swedish manufacturer Volvo recently announced plans to introduce a large fleet of autonomous vehicles to the public roads.
Other countries have already followed suit, amending legislation to allow for testing of self-driving cars.
