The Ministry of Defence is charging ahead with battlefield EVs, despite warnings it will cost lives. The Telegraph has the story.
The Telegraph has learnt that the Ministry of Defence will be ramping up testing of battlefield EVs next year at the Army’s Bovington Garrison in Dorset, home of the Tank Museum.
The testing, described by an insider as “putting these vehicles through their paces”, is at an experimental phase, but is an expansion of plans first mooted under the Conservative government on the development of combat EVs.
Since coming to office in July, the Government has handed more than £400,000 in contracts to Magtec, a defence firm that specialises in the electrification of vehicles.
In October, John Healey, the Defence Secretary, visited the firm’s design and manufacturing facility in South Yorkshire, saying he was impressed with the company’s “creative flair to improve the battlefield performance and the environmental performance of military vehicles”.
The Government has pledged to put its wider Net Zero goals at the heart of its defence industrial strategy, which was launched alongside a speech by Sir Keir Starmer this week on a major reset of government policy.
It said the strategy would “support Net Zero, regional growth and economic security and resilience”.
A Government source added: “New and emerging technologies can support decarbonisation efforts and improve battlefield capability, reducing the supply chain vulnerability of liquid fuel and also reducing the heat signature and noise of vehicles on the battlefield.”
Asked about the possibility of an electric tank, they added: “Never say never.”
However, military grandees on Saturday called for the Government to think again before pressing ahead with the “crazy endeavour”, warning that a rush to Net Zero on the battlefield could put British troops at a disadvantage.
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, said: “What this amounts to is virtue signalling by MoD, trying to get into the climate change agenda. I suspect it will be wasting quite a lot of people’s time and resources in trying to show they are playing their part. At the moment the technology is just not there.” …
Colonel Tim Collins, commander of the Royal Irish during the invasion of Iraq, said: “I doubt our adversaries will be looking much at this sort of thing. They’ll be looking for immediate effect, not approval ratings or whatever.”
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