The UK is a leader in precision engineering, with its long-established role at the forefront of high-tech motoring such as motorsport. But the green imperatives of the years to come may see such technology increasingly applied to the need for zero-carbon transport.
Following the COP26 conference in Glasgow, the UK and other nations will be bound by a range of commitments to decarbonise and transport will have a major role to play in this. But the willingness to reach political agreement on figures must now be translated into the action to bring new technology to bear on the issue in order to achieve the desired results.
What the motoring sector needs to do has been hinted at by the Second National Infrastructure Assessment for the National Infrastructure Commission. Its Baseline Report outlined a range of major infrastructure project priorities, including the provision of more facilities for electric cars. This includes more charging points.
Chair of the commission Sir John Armitt said the specifics of the projects the commission will support will be “informed by input and insight from industry, political leaders, representative bodies, other organisations across the country and the public”. That may include the capacity of the motoring sector to develop more efficient and effective electric cars.
While more chargepoints matters, making electric cars some of the best-performing vehicles on the road may help achieve the more optimistic targets for the elimination of petrol and diesel vehicles.
This week saw the government pledging to make HGV vehicles zero-carbon by 2040, while also noting that experts now believe 70 per cent of the world’s cars will be zero carbon by that time, twice the projected estimate of just five years ago.
Such technological development may be helped by the best engineers, not least as they work to reach such goals in Formula 1, where maximising power and efficiency in engines matters more than anywhere else – all within the framework of the sport’s own pledge to shift from being gas guzzlers to net zero by 2030.