Organisations can apply for a share of £10 million, inclusive of VAT, to provide an innovative solution to enable fleets to switch to battery electric trucks.
The aim of the competition is to develop an interactive solution to de-risk, aid and encourage fleet operators to convert to battery electric vehicles.
Bids are open to organisations now, and must be submitted by 11am on 21 April 2021.
Winners will be notified on 20 May and Phase 1 contracts will be awarded on 1 July.
This is phase 1 of a potential 2-phase competition. A decision to proceed with phase 2 will depend on funding decisions and the outcomes from phase 1 and may include assessment of a separate application into a subsequent phase 2 competition.
This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition funded by the Department for Transport and delivered by Innovate UK. It forms part of a £20 million managed programme supporting the transition to zero emission trucks in the UK.
The solution will be used by public and private fleet operators to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and deployment options around commercially available zero emission trucks.
The solution will also identify the needs and challenges around critical supporting infrastructure, vehicle charging and fleet management.
The phase 1 project must include data evaluation, test and demonstration involving a minimum of ten battery electric trucks.
The vehicles must be:
- between 16 and 29 tonnes gross vehicle weight (GVW)
- in service with the public sector lead customer that is supporting this activity
The purpose of field testing in a real-world, real-time logistics environment is to improve and validate the approach.
Battery electric trucks must be used where logistics operations would otherwise be using conventionally powered heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). The demonstration will act as a case study for others.
Data collected during the project should feed into and validate the identified outputs.
More information: https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk
