Instead, she says the likely cause of the country potentially missing out is the UK's lack of infrastructure for self-driving electric vehicles. She points to the shortage of charging bays and the limitations of the National Grid.
According to Blanc, there are about 125,000 plug-in electric cars in the UK and only 14,000 chargers – 2620 of which are rapid chargers. Long trips currently require vehicles to recharge two or three times and involve waiting for batteries to recharge.
Blanc makes the point that people will not want to queue for a supercharger and warns that without significant investment in the UK's power infrastructure, growing demand for electric vehicles could place the National Grid under immense pressure.
The chancellor, Phillip Hammond, has reaffirmed a budget pledge to ensure, ‘genuine driverless vehicles’ on Britain's roads by 2021.
Hammond has admitted that it would be a ‘very challenging’ achievement, but without improving the UK's power infrastructure ‘very challenging’ could prove to be ‘impossible’.
