Government announces £65M battery tech research institute

Seven founding partner universities to further electric vehicle battery technology

Government announces £65M battery tech research institute
Investments continue as government hopes the UK will be a formative power in EVs.

Business secretary, Greg Clark has announced the consortium of UK universities that will form the Faraday Battery Institute, a new £65 million research institute.

The Institute will bring together the expertise and insight from its founding partner universities, industry partners and other academic institutions to accelerate fundamental research to develop battery technologies.

The Faraday Battery Institute incorporates academics from Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, Imperial College London, Newcastle University and University College London.

The announcement is the latest development in the government’s £246 million investment in electric vehicle battery research.

‘Hub of development’

Investments in electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles are being made in a bid to make the UK a hub of development for self-driving cars.

Business secretary, Greg Clark said: “Through the Faraday Research Challenge we are cementing our position as the ‘go-to’ destination for battery technology so we can exploit the global transition to a low carbon economy.

“The Faraday Battery Institute will have a critical role in fostering innovative research collaboration between our world-leading universities and world-beating businesses to make this technology more accessible and more affordable.”

Related: Dyson confirms plans to build electric car by 2020

Autonomous and battery vehicles

As part of cementing the UK as a global leader in autonomous and battery vehicles, the government will unveil shortly the winners of its first £55 million Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) testing infrastructure competition.

This follows the government opening its £100 million CAV test bed competition in April, inviting proposals for how to create a cluster of excellence in driverless car testing, along the M40 corridor between Coventry and London, to accelerate the development of this technology, grow intellectual capital and attract overseas investment in the UK.

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