"UK Government's shortsighted BEV strategy harming UK PLC"

Policy shift needed for H2 mobility, says Riversimple founder "EV battery prices will rise, not fall, as demand increases"

- Chris Rosamond

THE UK Government's single-minded AE cars (BEVS) has been called out by a leading exponent of hydrogen fuel cell technology, who says the strategy is economically dangerous and damaging for consumers.

"The Government has a shortsighted strategy that's very bad news for the UK. They talk about technological neutrality but they don't live up to it," said the founder of eco-car company Riversimple, Hugo Spowers. The company aims to have its hydrogen fuel cell-powered car ready in two years, but Spowers says the focus on batteries is a barrier to innovation.

"It's detrimental to UK PLC," said Spowers, "We're investing one-tenth of what China invested in battery tech 10 years ago, and China controls around 70 per cent of the global raw materials required to make them. We've missed the battery revolution and we can't catch up."

Spowers maintains investing heavily in 'gigafactory' battery production to meet a 55 per cent local content requirement and protect the UK car industry's access to the European market post-Brexit is nonsensical, and that the Government should instead be investing in emerging technologies.