Strange-looking cars have been cruising the streets of London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds and South Yorkshire in the UK, hunting for leaky buildings. The Built Environment Scanning System (BESS) is a modified Tesla, fitted out with extra scanners, cameras and robotics equipment so it collects data on the dimensions, heat loss, materials, age and state of dilapidation of every building it drives past.
With funding from Innovate UK, the Welsh government and the UK Space Agency, UK non-profit xRI has built two of these BESS cars. Over the course of three months in 2024, the vehicles have scanned more than 1.5 million homes.
The aim is to combine the data gathered by the BESS cars with other information, including drone and satellite imagery, to build a comprehensive database on the state of the UK’s buildings. Collating this information into an AI-powered database will help councils, housing associations and other property owners more quickly design and finance big retrofit projects, the team hopes.
New Scientist took an exclusive ride in a BESS car to find out more about this technology and how it can help the UK speed up the decarbonisation of its building stock.
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