Dyson plans increased investment to develop electric car
James Dyson, the man who invented the bagless vacuum cleaner, will plough £2bn into the development of an electric car for launch in 2020.
"Some years ago, observing that automotive firms were not changing their spots, I committed the company to develop new battery technologies," James Dyson wrote in an email to employees of his eponymous company. "I believed that electrically powered vehicles would solve the vehicle pollution problem."
In 2015, reports began to circulate of Dyson's renewed interest in entering the automotive space after it spent $90m in acquiring Sakti3, a Michigan-based designer of solid-state batteries.
Earlier Dyson prototypes had focused on attaching a vacuum-cleaner-style cyclonic filter to vehicle exhaust systems in an effort to trap diesel fumes but these plans were scrapped when the concept failed to generate manufacturer interest.
As a result of a major automotive industry shift towards electronic vehicles in the last two years, the doors were opened to a number of new players, with the likes of Tesla and even Apple showing an increased interest in the sector.
Dyson, which had previously pledged $1bn over the next five years towards battery development, announced it would be investing a further £1.5bn into the eco-friendly vehicle market as 400 engineers had been working on the project from its Wiltshire site since 2015.
The company had also recently hired ex-Tesla communications chief Ricardo Reyes, as well as former Aston Martin product development and supply chain experts.
Plans revealed in March for the firm's new research and development facility in the southern Cotswold town of Malmesbury, further fanned the flames of rumours that Dyson was looking to stake its claim in the market.
"The team is already over 400 strong, and we are recruiting aggressively. I'm committed to investing £2bn on this endeavour," said Dyson, before noting the company had already "begun work on a battery electric vehicle, due to be launched by 2020."
Dyson said the design was "all about the technology" and cautioned that the vehicle would be an expensive one to purchase, but did not go so far as to give an estimate on the car's price tag.
Jaguar Land Rover had previously stated its intentions of developing electric or hybrid versions of all its models by 2020, with a fully electric car set to go on sale in 2018, while BMW announced it would build an electric Mini in Oxford.