UK engineering firm Dyson has pulled the plug on the £2bn electric vehicle project it announced back in 2017.
In a letter to employees, founder and chairman James Dyson said that the company could “no longer see a way to make it commercially viable.” Attempts to sell the Dyson Automotive division, which employs some 523 people, had proved fruitless. The letter went on to say that the company is attempting to find roles within other divisions for those who had been working on the project. Patents from the EV development that were first published in 2019 remain under Dyson’s control and the company says it will continue its work on solid state batteries.
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“This is not a product failure, or a failure of the team, for whom this news will be hard to hear and digest,” the letter said.
“We are working to quickly find alternative roles within Dyson for as many of the team as possible and we have sufficient vacancies to absorb most of the people into our Home business. For those who cannot, or do not wish to, find alternative roles, we will support them fairly and with the respect deserved.”
Dyson’s move into the EV market in 2017 was met with much fanfare, but the company came in for criticism when it announced in 2018 that the vehicles would be manufactured in Singapore rather than the UK. James Dyson, who has been one of the most prominent business figures to back Brexit, recently purchased a £43m penthouse apartment in the Asian city state, having announced in January 2019 that the company HQ would also be moved there.
Since 2004, the company has transferred much of its manufacturing base to Malaysia and Singapore, while continuing to invest in R&D in the UK. Despite the EV setback, Dyson said it will continue to invest and expand at its Malmesbury, Hullavington and Singapore sites, as well other locations around the world.
“Since day one we have taken risks and dared to challenge the status quo with new products and technologies,” the statement continued. “Such an approach drives progress, but has never been an easy journey – the route to success is never linear. This is not the first project which has changed direction and it will not be the last.”
Employees marched off site yesterday as soon as the letter came out. Doesn’t sound like much support to the workers to me. Always seemed like they had bitten off more than he could chew in an area he didn’t understand. No common engineering language due to many different auto OEM approaches and a general fear of telling ‘the visionary’ the truth about the scale of the challenge. A real shame for all those who put in hard work on the project.
While there seems to be a lot of innovation going on in the design and development of electric vehicles, the same doesn’t seem to be true for the way they are built. The prevailing approach still seems to be one of either having separate production lines for conventional and electric vehicles or upgrading conventional production lines to produce EVs instead. I worked on an article recently which looked at how lines could be adapted with intelligent pallets and adaptive tooling to produce any type of vehicle – petrol, diesel, electric or hybrid – on a single line. For manufacturers, this represents significant savings as well as the ability to better spread the risks associated with guessing on the future for EVs.
This is a very sensible decision. The car industry is already over populated with manufacturers Dyson would have simply been incidental in the electric car building activity.
It would be great if James and his team of engineers took on the development of low temp fuel cells than can then power the upcoming electric motive fleet.
Here is an extract from Dyson’s patent https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/DC1C/production/_109184365_dysonautomotivepatent.jpg so you can gauge the loss of innovative ideas …
2 billion bloody quid. But he hasn’t got 3 seconds to sign an NDA that (could) show him how to do it; & a better car too.
You deserve your lawyers, James.
There are plenty of car manufacturers around the world already. Reinventing the wheel comes to mind here and tryign to compete in an overcrowded and highly competitive market. As someone said above, a fear of telling the visionary where they may be going in the direction taking into account all the ambush factors. However, what is needed instead of yet more vehicles is a lot of research and development into energy storage and transfer. That is the key to success in this emerging need for non fossil fuel vehicles. Better fuel cells, hydrogen storage and generation, upgraded national grid and generating capacity, installation of a practical and effectuve charging infrastructure network. A pity, but his investment was misdirected.
Apparently the Government was asked for £16m by Dyson, who got through £5m of it before declaring that the project was not actually feasible!
Apart from Dyson, who were the Government engineers who were involved in making that bet? Surely they must also be held to account for their error of judgment, if not skill.
However, this failure cruelly exposes the whole EV movement as a grant-fuelled bandwagon whose wheels are now falling off. Fact is, the technology hasn’t really moved on since the early 1900s. EVs are still too heavy, and take too long to charge up. Milk Floats remain the only practical application.
Our Dyson vacuum cleaner never worked very well. Henry the Hoover is far better.
Dyson hand driers don’t seem to be the most effective I’ve used.
I’ve never really been convinced by Dyson’s products!
The Financial Times put Dyson’s dilemma starkly: “The £2bn gamble will either define the brand or drain its resources and potentially plunge it into oblivion.” Dyson said. “Maybe they’re right.” Tesla has burned through anywhere up to £20bn of borrowed money.
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/james-dyson-electric-car-interview-2018
They all make the same mistakes and follow the daft false premise of car design convention, by constructing a hideously complex platform/body monocoque on an ancient cart (i.e. 2-axle, 4-wheel) format. 4wd, fwd and rwd are ALL wrong. KISS: the correct clean-sheet design is based on a simple, universal cruciform chassis, mid-wheel drive and two inboard electric motors. It should be designed on passive Stable Suspension principles – period. An EV chassis must be designed to carry one or two demountable battery packs of mandatory dimensions – then you don’t waste money and energy carrying around thousands of cells to give you a 200-mile range. Just add the battery-swap service to every filling station forecourt.
Make the body very aerodynamic, simple and separate, so it can be re-styled to your heart’s content, and repaired at minimal cost. The futurecar must last a lifetime and belong in the circular economy.
“Dyson wanted to make something revolutionary and had planned to develop a ‘radical and different’ electric vehicle.” Then he designed a conservative, compromised and very conventional car, because he wouldn’t listen to good advice.
“Ask Dyson”: The TimesOnline – 7 April 2010 at 15.09:-
Dear Sir James,
“Persistence, patience and determination” – Yes, absolutely.
“If you show total belief in your invention it helps others to catch on.” No, that is NOT so. If your idea dares to question the orthodoxy, disbelief and hostility is the norm and the first put-down is “put your money where your mouth is”, which is a problem if you have none!
“I can show you proof that neither a quad-bike nor an F1 car should have a ride/handling compromise. Do you believe me? My passive suspension model works beautifully, even without dampers! Do you want to see it? That’s question 1.”
Why invite people to give you ideas and then ignore them?! Your hubris is disrespectful. I’d never fool myself that “total belief” gets results. Engineering design is only any good if it conforms to the immutable laws of physics! The proof is absolute and irrefutable, but that does NOT help “others to catch on”, when they believe in their own infallibility. e.g:-
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/sheffield-hallam-university-helps-guy-martin-break-downhill-speed-record/
My ‘avatar’ is one example of the 1989 patented, bicycle-specific suspension that’s still a unique, but not commercialised, design today. Applying the principle to a car was a ‘novel step’ I could never afford. Patent law infringes human rights. 30 years of “persistence, patience and determination.” gets you nowhere. A very wise choice – not sinking your life savings into it. . .
Hello Edward, can you provide a link to the article, it should be a good read?
@David, sorry to tell you but millions of years of evolution resulted with animals, from insects to mammals, with the same locomotion template as current land vehicles. What we have now is as good as it gets.
@Claudiu Sav . . . How did these bipedal and quadrupedal animals develop wheels?! What planet do you live on? Badly designed vehicles have long had fatal consequences and still do. Check out the engineering reality . . . e.g. “Unsafe at Any Speed”!!
The main problem with all of these ideas is lack of an overall design strategy. Charging needs to be done via induction under the road; no worries on distance or age of batteries. Use two different size motors to power car (vehicle) and one can be used to generate power in cruise configuration. Braking using motor (no actual brakes needed) control. Use ultrasonics for windscreen clearance (uses les power than wiper motor). There are more ideas that could be used to improve range and keep the weight down to reduce the cost. The motors could have a half gear change to improve torque which would be good for towing and reduces motor speed which uses less current/voltage out of the batteries. These are just a few of the things that could be done to make a far cheaper vehicle than an ICE based vehicle. The problem at the moment is no one is designing from scratch to get the best technology to fit the bill. Every manufacture is saying use my drives to run the wheels; use my heaters to warm the interior; use my lights etc; you get the message! If done properly an electric car would cost far less than an ICE car!