£22.4 million for autonomous vehicle R&D projects

Twenty-two projects will be supported through the latest round of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) funding.

They include examining off-road self-driving vehicles in extreme conditions to help the mining and construction sectors.

Other projects will develop technology that will allow self-driving vehicles to function in situations where weather visibility is so poor human drivers would struggle to navigate, while other projects will look to trial autonomous ‘Mobility as a Service’ (Maas) services in London, Cambridge and Didcot.

Autonomous vehicle technology will also be used to solve parking issues, with Parkopedia using their funding to develop autonomous valet parking systems (AVP) which will allow drivers to leave their car at their final destination and the car will park itself. T-CABS meanwhile will use its funding to build a fleet of 15 seat pods and use them to demonstrate a fare paying public transport service in Cambridge.

The government will be launching further competitions later this year worth up to £45 million in total. This includes the second CAV testing infrastructure competition with Meridian, the UK’s CAV coordination hub, and a further CAV R&D competition.