Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:28 pm on 10 October 2017.
Can I thank Eluned Morgan for her question? I think she raises a really, really exciting area of study at the moment, and it’s one of the areas of work that the automotive technology park in Ebbw Vale will be examining, because I think there are experts now—indeed, there’s Paul Davies, within Industry Wales, who’s identified the need to ensure that connected autonomous vehicles are not just produced for urban use, but that there is also rural use applied to their manufacturing as well. For that reason, I’m keen to make sure that Wales is at the forefront of developing a rural autonomous programme, because it could be something that we could sell, roll out, protect intellectual rights for, and roll out right across the UK and, indeed, much of the western world and more rural parts of less developed parts of the world. So, I do think, as we horizon-scan the potential of electric vehicles, we also bear in mind that connected vehicles and autonomous vehicles will lead, potentially, to fewer people owning their own vehicles, but hiring, renting autonomous self-driving vehicles. That in turn could lead to fewer cars being parked up on driveways and on roadsides and more cars actually being used more of the time on our roads. It presents huge opportunities, big challenges, but it’s something that my department, my officials are currently looking at, very much through the lens of not just how we can solve problems and take advantage of opportunities for urban areas, but how we can model bespoke solutions to more rural areas as well.