Farming: Could hydrogen powered tractor offer a green solution?

A company developing a power source for tractors that runs on hydrogen made on-farm from renewables is one of a group of innovators which has received a share of £11 million in funding.

Dolphin N2is one of 12 manufacturing projects to receive government grant funding through the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), to accelerate product development in the UK.

With industry match-funding, projects will receive a total of £22.7 million to develop innovative automotive products within 12 months.

Other winners includeWhite Motorcycle Concepts, which is developing a fully operational, rapid-charge first responder motorcycle for use by emergency services, Involution Technologies for an innovative electric drive unit suitable to drive any large on/off-highway commercial, construction or agricultural vehicle and Wrightbus which is accelerating the development of zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell electric coaches.

Minister for Industry and Economic Security Nusrat Ghani said: "The UK automotive sector is at the cutting edge of exploiting innovative technologies. These have the potential to create jobs, grow the economy and accelerate how we reach net-zero. This package of funding will help industry and government work together and take decisive action in targeting areas where the UK is leading the way.

"We are providing over £50 million of government funding to support 30 groundbreaking projects. This government has shown time and time again that we are committed to creating the right conditions to make the UK the best location in the world to manufacture."

Acknowledging the huge potential of self-driving technologies, the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) is also providing £18.5 million of R&D grant funding for 43 British companies. 13 projects are developing self-driving technologies, products and services ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and transforming the ways people and goods are moved across the nation.

Winners include Wayve who are developing methods to evidence the safety of AI in self-driving technology, supporting our work to ensure self-driving capabilities are safe, Nissan who are further developing their self-driving capability in towns and cities, and Zero Point Motion who are developing a revolutionary automotive sensor that will change how self-driving vehicles position themselves in the real world.

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