The Zenzic team has returned to MOVE: Mobility Re-Imagined for its 2024 edition in Excel London (June 19-20). MOVE is a leading tech mobility event, bringing together the people and companies redefining mobility, to connect the entire ecosystem focused on tech, business models and sustainable futures – bringing together 5,000+ mobility professionals, 1,500+ CEOs, and 650+ speakers.

At stand 39, alongside the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), Zenzic provided visibility for the CAM ecosystem, showcasing the Deployment and Supply Chain projects, CAM Scale-Up UK as well as CAM Testbed UK. It was a pleasure to see Zenzic-supported companies also exhibiting, including BEAM, Angoka, SMLL and Calyo.

On day one of the event, Zenzic’s Head of Innovation Francis McKinney chaired an exciting panel digging into the future vision of CAM in our cities, discussing: “How AVs will interact with Smart City Infrastructure”. The Zenzic team also attended offsite meetings and presented at these to increase visibility of Zenzic’s activities, as well as continued conversations with international delegations from several countries during the event (see more on the Location theme section below).

On the second day of the event, APC’s CEO Ian Constance participated as a panelist in another exciting session, titled: “Finding the optimal EV drivetrain architecture.”

Four main themes appeared to be recurrent across panels and other speaking engagements: (1) Insurance, (2) Accessibility, (3) Overcoming The Valley of Death, and (4) Location, Location, Location.

  • Insurance: With the ABI, Marsh, AON, as well as many other representatives from the insurance industry, and many sessions covering this area, the importance and role of insurance was more visible than ever before at MOVE. The keenness of the insurance industry to work with the mobility industry came through strongly and a clear call to action for Government and the industries to come together to answer questions and debate solutions.
  • Accessibility: Motability Operations, which operates the Motability Scheme, giving over 760,000 disabled people in the UK access to a mobility solution that meets their needs and also a platinum sponsor – shared a stand with CALLUM Designs, an engineering design agency, and introduced ‘eVITA’ – a concept electric vehicle wheelchair accessible vehicle. Gordon McCullough, RIDC, spoke on a panel ‘Autonomous in the service of road safety’ and the Motability team spoke on three other sessions: Innovating to ensure no one is left behind, Partnering for Innovation and Human-centered design: auto concepts for the car of tomorrow.
  • Overcoming the Valley of Death: The valley of death is a well-known but difficult period for SMEs where they may sink or swim. Conversations revolving around market pull and pace of demand for autonomous solutions, access to funding, either government or private, and how to bridge the valley reoccurred in many of the sessions. Whilst the AV Act has been very well received there is an understanding that this is the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the ‘middle’ may bring surprises and take time.
  • Location, Location, Location: The Welsh Government team and Kelly Marsh, were out in force, championing the businesses, skills and opportunities that there are across the country, including – GCRE (The Global Centre of Rail Excellence), which will be a purpose built site for world class research, testing and certification of rolling stock, infrastructure and innovative new rail technologies that will fill a gap, not just in UK rail, but across Europe. The London and Partners team Pru Ashby, London’s business and destination agency, championed the city and the companies within it. Delegations from Catalonia, Bavaria and The Netherlands brought a strong European feeling to the event, and demonstrated how similar the challenges that the connected and automated mobility sectors are – and, recognised by the European Commission policy team at the event, how important that universal standards are adopted.

If you are interested to know more about the UK CAM Ecosystem, or have any plans to attend MOVE 2025, you can get in touch: info@zenzic.io

Background information can also be found here: Zenzic Innovation