CULHAM Science Centre has officially opened its testing centre for driverless cars.

The launch took place on Friday and it was revealed that a further £780,000 of funding has been secured by Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership, via the government’s Local Growth Fund, to expand.

Additional funding will help pay for a prototype ‘autonomous’ minibus to support the science centre’s ambitions to transport people to Culham Railway Station and around the site.

Herald Series:

The connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) facility called ‘Pit Lane’ was developed by RACE (Remote Applications in Challenging Environments) with £2m of original funding for the project secured by OxLEP via the government’s Local Growth Fund.

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Ian Chapman, chief executive of UKAEA, and Rob Buckingham, director of RACE, were joined by Nigel Tipple, chief executive of OxLEP, to declare the centre’s new CAV facility open for business.

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Director of RACE Rob Buckingham said: “This event allows us to demonstrate our growing capability to host trials of self-driving vehicles at Culham Science Centre against a backdrop of a range of great companies showcasing how they are actively contributing to making the self-driving revolution real.”