Since Sir James Dyson announced in 2017 that he wanted to revolutionize the electromobility landscape with not one, but two electric cars, every novelty about this project has been followed with magnifying glass. Dyson’s mysterious electric car was going to debut in 2021 with no apparent economic problems in sight, but it seems that there were.
In a recent statement, Dyson himself has announced that the project has been canceled: “We have gone through a serious process to find a buyer for the project that, unfortunately, has not been successful so far,” explained the British billionaire.
We are sad to announce a proposal to end our automotive project. The Dyson automotive team has developed a fantastic electric car, but unfortunately it is not commercially viable. Read more here.
— Dyson (@Dyson) October 10, 2019
According to him, Dyson specialists “developed a fantastic car”, however, as the project developed, it became clear that it would not be profitable.
Dyson announced its intention to develop its own electric car in September 2017. In general, it was planned to invest $ 2.7 billion in the development of the machine, including more than one billion – for the development of new battery technologies and the construction of a factory for their production.
In the electric car, it was planned to use batteries with solid electrolyte, developed by Sakti3. Dyson acquired this company back in 2015 for $ 90 million. In total, as part of the electric vehicle development project, Dyson planned to release three prototypes for testing.
In October 2017, Dyson CEO Max Konce announced that the new electric car will receive a range that will be 50-100 percent higher than that of any existing electric car. It was planned to achieve such results not only thanks to new batteries, but also to electric motors of a new design.
Initially, Dyson planned to launch mass production of new electric vehicles in 2020, but later shifted this period to 2021. About 600 people were involved in the electric vehicle project. After announcing the closure of the project, Dyson noted that most will not lose their jobs and will continue to work in other positions at Dyson.
In addition, the former president of Infiniti and BMW, Roland Krueger, was chosen to lead the project. And there’s more: Dyson’s global production development manager was Aston Martin’s former engineering director, Ian Minards, while its automotive commercial director, Andy Gawthorpe, was director of marketing planning and strategy at Jaguar Land Rover.
“We will continue to expand in Malmesbury, Hullavington, Singapore and other global locations,” he said. In fact, Singapore had been the site chosen to manufacture the electric car in 2020; a country where it already employs more than 1,000 people who manufacture electric motors for their appliances.
However, this giant of vacuum cleaners and hair dryers has assured that it will continue with its investment program of 2.5 billion pounds in new technologies and what is more interesting, in the development of solid state batteries, since the first electric car I was supposed to equip this type of batteries.
It will also focus on the development of vision, robotics and Artificial Intelligence systems. “I remain as excited about Dyson’s future as I always have been; our ambitions were never so high, our investment capacity was never so great and the team was never stronger,” Dyson said.
