Richard Pearson

Dr Richard Pearson is bp’s Senior Technical Advisor for Electrified Vehicles and Mobility. His work focuses on fore-sighting the impact and opportunities arising from developments in vehicle technology and legislation across the transport sector. He is deeply immersed in projects which facilitate transport decarbonisation through high-power charging of electric cars and trucks, and the use of hydrogen and low-carbon liquid fuels in road, marine and aviation transport. Richard interacts with senior strategy and technical staff across a wide range of vehicle manufacturers in the light- and heavy-duty vehicle space. Based in Applied Sciences, within bp Innovation and Engineering, Richard provides technical support across many bp functions, including bp Pulse, bp’s Hydrogen Mobility team, Strategy and Sustainability, bp Ventures, and the technology, marketing, and strategy teams responsible for Castrol lubricants and EV fluids. He has been with the company since 2012.

Before joining bp Richard has previously held positions at Ricardo, in academia (at Manchester University), and at Lotus Engineering, where he spent 14 years, culminating as Head of Vehicle Research. Whilst at Lotus Richard worked on a wide range of technologies including advanced ICE and alternative fuel technologies, hybrid and electric vehicles, and light-weight vehicle structures, carrying out pioneering work in life-cycle analysis of vehicles with alternative propulsion systems. He has represented his respective employers on a variety of government and industrial advisory and strategy boards. Richard has acted as a visiting professor at two UK universities and has published over 120 peer-reviewed technical papers, several book chapters, and two full books.