James Dyson has set his sights on the automotive industry, with plans to develop a range of electric cars.
Dyson said in September last year that he was working on a vehicle that will be “radically different” from current models and will go on sale in 2020.
The £2bn project is expected to produce a range of three vehicles, the Financial Times reported last week.
The first car will be used to establish a route to market, a supply chain and a potential customer base, sources told the newspaper. It is likely to be a high-end model with a relatively low production run, in the single-digit thousands, and is expected to run on lithium-ion batteries.
Dyson hopes to launch the car in 2020 or 2021.
Future models are anticipated to use solid-state batteries — a technology that Dyson has been developing for years, offering the potential to drive further and charge faster.
While a number of other car manufacturers are developing solid-state battery technology, only one — Toyota — has made a commitment to release a solid-state car before 2025.
As a result, Dyson has the potential to be first to market with a technology that many believe is the future of electric cars.
The entrepreneur told the FT that his company has been “investing heavily in new battery technology, solid-state battery technology … but those sorts of technologies can take some time to get there.”
He declined to give specific details of its battery plans, saying: “We’re not talking about what we’re doing.”
The company has pledged to invest £1bn into battery development, and another £1bn into developing electric cars.
Tags: autonomous vehicles, Dyson, electric car, smart cars, Smart City