The Prime Minister will unveil a £106 million package for projects developing electric vehicles (EVs), batteries and charging technology, at the country’s first ever Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Summit today.

Speaking at the event in Birmingham, Theresa May will outline her “ambitious mission” for the UK to become world leader in low emission technology.

Transport secretary, Chris Grayling, business secretary, Greg Clark, and trade secretary, Liam Fox will also be in attendance.

At the summit, the Prime Minister will also host an automotive roundtable with leading supply-chain companies from Germany, the USA, Japan, China, Spain and India, to explore what more the government and industry can do together to accelerate the development of the zero-emissions market and to highlight the UK’s strong offer.

A new, international declaration will also be unveiled at the event, which will forge the way for the worldwide deployment of green vehicles, and the introduction of smart, zero-emission infrastructure.

The work is all part of the government’s Future of Mobility Grand Challenge, outlined in its modern Industrial Strategy, aiming to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, make travel safer, improve accessibility, and present enormous economic opportunities for the UK.

The Prime Minister is expected to say: “I want to see Britain, once again, leading from the front and working with industries and countries around the world to spearhead change.

“This is the next step in the mission to put the UK at the forefront of zero-emission technology and it sees industry stepping up to the challenge alongside the government.”

More than £500m worth of investments have been announced by companies in projects relating to low emission technology, creating 1,000 jobs across the UK. These announcements include:

  • JEE is investing around £6m in the UK to establish an assembly and testing facility in Birmingham, employing around 20 highly skilled people by 2020
  • Aston Martin is announcing a further £50m investment at its new St Athan facility in Wales, which will become its centre for electrification. The investment will create an additional 200 jobs at the site and, in total, the new plant will bring up to 750 high skilled jobs to South Wales
  • Cummins will invest £210m in research and development in the automotive (and associated) industries over the next three years in the UK
  • The EV Network, UK-based charging station development company, is developing 200 fast-charging stations throughout the UK, representing an investment of around £200m. The company has joined forces with Leclanché that will be supplying the battery storage solutions to the stations. EVN and Leclanché are announcing an EV Charging Centre of Excellence in Warwick
  • New Williams Advanced Engineering and Unipart Manufacturing Group joint-venture Hyperbat Limited will open the UK’s largest, independent, vehicle battery manufacturing plant in Coventry in early 2019. The site will create around 90 new, high-value, high-tech jobs
  • Zhuzhou CRRC Times Electric Co., Ltd. (TEC), a subsidiary of CRRC, has confirmed Birmingham as the location for its new UK R&D Innovation Centre for EVs, rail, and renewable. The centre will employ more than 150 engineers by 2022, with an overall investment of up to £50m
  • Lloyds Banking Group, the principal partner of the ZEV Summit, is announcing a new £1m fund for electric vehicle leases to incentivise zero-emission driving. The fund is for the first 1,000 customers who sign up for a pure electric vehicle from Lex Autolease, the vehicle leasing arm of the group, from January 2019
  • Ryobi Aluminium Casting UK is investing £7m in melting furnace and die-casting machines, to increase production of precision transmission components
  • Lear Corporation is investing £54m in its UK seating operations, with £19m to go into capital and training and £35m into engineering. The investment creates another 220 jobs and safeguards 600
  • Science and engineering company QinetiQ is expanding its Power Sources, Energy Storage & Distribution business, growing its team by 25% and making an initial £2m investment in facilities in Farnborough over the next nine months
  • Leoni will be investing £7m in a new technical centre in South Warwickshire, creating over 100 new design & development jobs, working with major OEMs in developing technologies for the next generation of autonomous and electric vehicles
  • MINTH plans to establish a new facility in UK to service new orders from UK OEMs, and is developing new products to reflect the shift towards light-weight electrification and autonomous driving in the automotive industry

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