Skip to main content

Queen’s Speech introduces automated and electric vehicles bill

An Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill is to be introduced to encourage the use of electric and self-driving cars, the UK government has announced in the Queen’s Speech this week.
June 22, 2017 Read time: 1 min
An Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill is to be introduced to encourage the use of electric and self-driving cars, the UK government has announced in the Queen’s Speech this week. The Bill is designed to ‘ensure the UK continues to be at the forefront of developing new technology in electric and automated road vehicles’.


The Bill will allow the regulatory framework to keep pace with the fast evolving technology for electric cars, helping improve air quality. It also provides for the installation of charging points for electric and hydrogen vehicles.

Compulsory motor vehicle insurance would be extended to cover the use of automated vehicles, to ensure that compensation claims continue to be paid quickly, fairly, and easily, in line with longstanding insurance practice.

Related Content

  • Government targets ‘too conservative’ as 1 in 5 plan to embrace electric cars
    July 20, 2017
    Electric vehicle uptake may increase over the next few years to levels far above UK Government targets. In research undertaken by Baringa Partners, nearly a fifth of people said they would consider buying an electric vehicle for their next car, double the Government goal for electric cars to make up nine per cent of the fleet by 2020. However, concerns over purchase price and range mean nearly a third of people believe electric cars will never overtake petrol and diesel vehicles. Baringa is urging the Gover
  • Asecap: get ready to rethink everything you know
    November 15, 2022
    How can we make our infrastructure ready for new sustainability challenges? What kind of investments are needed? And who will finance them? Tolling association Asecap has some thoughts. Geoff Hadwick reports from Lisbon
  • Debating the future of in-vehicle systems
    December 6, 2012
    Industry experts talk to Jason Barnes about the legislative situation of current and future in-vehicle systems. Articles about technology development can have a tendency to reference Moore’s Law with almost indecent regularity and haste but the fact remains that despite predictions of slow-down or plateauing, the pace remains unrelenting. That juxtaposes with a common tendency within the ITS industry: to concentrate on the technology and assume that much else – legislation, business cases and so on – will m
  • ITS welcomes UK gov MaaS code as 'very real progress to frictionless travel'
    September 4, 2023
    Mobility as a Service code of practice designed to encourage app developers