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Dyson has scrapped its electric car project
Dyson had planned to invest more than £2bn in developing a "radical and different" electric vehicle, a project it launched in 2016. It said the car would not be aimed at the mass market. Half of the funds would go towards building the car, half towards developing electric batteries.
In October 2018 Dyson revealed plans to build the car at a new plant in Singapore. It was expected to be completed next year, with the first vehicles due to roll off the production line in 2021.
[...] Dyson has concluded it simply can't afford to play with the big boys - although its efforts to make a quantum leap in battery technology will continue. [...] Sir James said Dyson would continue to work on the battery technology, which was used in the car. "Our battery will benefit Dyson in a profound way and take us in exciting new directions."
Previously: Dyson Developing Electric Cars... With UK Government Money
Dyson Will Build Electric Cars in Singapore for a 2021 Launch
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 11 2019, @05:39PM (6 children)
Oh really? Is that why BMW and Mercedes have been scrambling to bring their own EVs to market, and not because Tesla Model S has cannibalized the most profitable segment of their model line-ups?
Jesus. Well, it appears the BBC is no more to auto industry hit pieces than the New York Times. Remember when their "auto expert" took a test drive and declared the Tesla Model S was a complete disaster because it ran out of battery and stranded him on the side of the road? That was a *gasp* death knell for electric cars for about half a day before Tesla published the telemetry from the loaner they let the guy use, which showed him driving around in circles trying to run out of battery and ignoring multiple warnings and directions to the nearest charging station.
I am sorry that Dyson could not bring their plans to market. More smart engineers working on a challenge brings better solutions to the fore. It shouldn't check the sea change toward EVs, though. Every major brand is scrambling to transfer their models into electric or at least hybrid versions. That in turn is turbo charging the ancillary technologies of battery design and recharging infrastructure & standards. Ten years from now gas vehicles are going to feel like an anachronism. Heck, even manually driven cars will feel that way, too, if self-driving tech improves on the same curve as EVs are.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @06:12PM
No, that's because of the emissions scandal and legislative insistence on coal powered cars!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 11 2019, @06:58PM (2 children)
Read the article?
The Dyson calling it quits on EV article I read said it was because EVs are too easy to make, 1/3 the component count of ICE cars, and there is already too much competition for a paltry little $1B/year company like Dyson to compete on the marketing end with all the players who are going to flood in because they can (like Tesla...)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by NateMich on Friday October 11 2019, @09:15PM (1 child)
I thought the takeaway was that electric cars don't make any money. This is already known throughout the industry.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 11 2019, @10:29PM
Different article, different spin, I suppose. Too lazy/pressed for time at the moment to find mine that I read this morning again.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 12 2019, @04:02AM (1 child)
Both which remain way behind what is needed. Sorry, I don't buy that a chemical battery (or indeed any battery equivalent, like a flywheel where chemical bonds are a limit of the energy the battery can contain) can ever be competitive with the energy content of a tank of hydrocarbons, even with exotic, high energy reactions (involving stuff like fluorine and the more exciting metals). Nuclear and such is a different story. But chemical batteries have to compete with a chemical storage system that a) doesn't need to store the oxidizer part (only a few batteries use air as the oxidizer), and b) doesn't need to store the waste reaction products either (no battery can do that).
The only thing that keeps electric viable is the considerable inefficiency of the internal combustion engine which is limited in efficiency due to the maximum heat load that various critical parts of the engine can withstand. Maybe some sort of staged combustion (allows for much hotter combustion, increasing efficiency) gas turbine/electric combo (since electric really is a nice way to transfer power to the wheels and already exists) could do it, but that's not going to show up on a commercial vehicle in the next ten years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @07:45AM
Latest gasoline ICEs are over 40% thermal efficiency and pushing on 50%. Takes a combination of turbocharging and clever controls but this is coming to production in the near future.