Dyson's electric car revealed months after project's cancellation
The company was moving full speed ahead to introduce an EV with a solid-state battery and 600 miles of range before it called it quits.
Building cars is not an easy job, and 99% of the companies that build cars have done so for decades, amassing enormous wealths of experience. Dyson , the British technology company best known for its bagless vacuums, found this out the hard way.
On Saturday, the Sunday Times of London reported on Sir James Dyson's electric car project, which the inventor formally announced back in 2017. The story even includes an unexpected look at the electric vehicle to show off what could have been. Over the past three years, the project was highly secretive, with only a few major updates along the way, like patent images that detailed a Tesla Model X rival and plans for a production plant in Singapore.
Sir James Dyson, Britain’s richest man, spent £500m developing an electric car to rival Tesla’s. Then he scrapped it before the first prototype took to the road. He tells John Arlidge why https://t.co/mIVmVFnN6D
— The Sunday Times Magazine (@TheSTMagazine) May 17, 2020
Dyson told the newspaper the project cost around $600 million at the time the company halted all work and canceled the project. Originally, the firm earmarked about $2.5 billion to see the project through. Dyson said the company realized it didn't have the economies of scale, however, to bring the car to mass production and make a profit. The floated price tag? $150,000 just to break even on each car sold.
Yet the car could have been a technological marvel, with a planned solid-state battery to provide 600 miles of range, two electric motors for a total of 536 horsepower and a top speed of 125 mph. Dyson said its car would have weighed around 5,730 pounds, but still sprint from 0-62 mph in 4.8 seconds. A Dyson spokesperson confirmed these technical specs but declined to comment further on the vehicle.
When Dyson hit the brakes on the EV project, the company told Roadshow it sought a buyer for its work but was not successful. The remaining cash earmarked for the car was funneled back into core technologies and robotics. The company still plans to pursue work on solid-state batteries and even vehicle sensors.
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