AN OXFORD-BASED consortium will today be told it is to receive £10.7m of Government cash to help put electric cars on the road within a decade.

The Mini E research consortium, which is led by the Cowley-based BMW Group and includes Oxford Brookes University and Scottish & Southern Energy, hopes to put an all-electric Mini car on the road within 10 years.

It is planned that approximately 40 all-electric Mini E vehicles will begin road testing within the next six to 18 months, in a trial that will evaluate the “technical and social aspects of living with an all-electric vehicle”.

Oxford Brookes University, under the direction of Prof Allan Hutchinson — who leads its Sustainable Vehicle Engineering Centre, will be responsible for undertaking scientific data analysis as well as conducting customer surveys.

Scottish and Southern Energy will be responsible for providing the infrastructure in and around Oxford and other locations in the South East by installing the private and public charging points that will be required to recharge the batteries in the Mini E test vehicles.

Project manager Emma Lowndes, from the BMW Group, said: “We believe the Mini E is an excellent vehicle for trialling this alternative form of sustainable mobility.

“And what better time to do this than in the year we celebrate the 50th birthday of Mini.

“We aim to begin series production of all-electric mega-city vehicles by the middle of the next decade.”

Other projects in Glasgow, the North East, the West Midlands, the South East and three projects in London have also received funding.