British transport secretary Philip Hammond has allocated £24 million in government grants to six projects designed to develop new engines and materials for electric and hybrid vehicles.
With contributions from the private sector, the initiatives - which are all winners of a Technology Strategy Board competition - will receive around £52 million to put the UK "at the forefront of low-carbon automotive development", the Department for Transport (DfT) said. The projects cover areas such as creating new engines for plug-hybrid versions of Jaguar Land Rover, Lotus and Nissan cars, producing lightweight materials to reduce vehicle weight and refining methods of harnessing thermal energy to improve performance.
Mr Hammond said that with 84 per cent of journeys currently made by car, there is little prospect of taking private vehicles off the road - but the technological revolution promised by low carbon vehicles could mean the benefits of motoring are retained without destroying the planet.
According to recent statistics from the DfT, there were 114,000 hybrid, electric and gas/LPG powered cars on the road at the end of 2009. Overall, there were 34.3 million vehicles registered in Britain.
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