Shortly after it was revealed that vacuum giant Dyson is building an electric vehicle, the company’s founder has revealed to Auto Express he ultimately intends on building a range of EVs.
During an extensive interview with the publication, James Dyson said that the company has yet to build a running prototype yet remains confident that it can turn a profit on its first model and use that money to create a larger portfolio of cars.
“Getting into doing a new-technology car is different, and the cars should be different, because they can’t be built like internal combustion-engined cars. But the up-front investment in the body-in-white is a huge investment. Over the years, we’d hope to get payback on that initial investment in the body-in-white so, yes, we hope to have a range of cars,” Dyson said.
The company says it is designing and building the car all by itself and will even create its own chassis. Despite the huge task at hand and the always present threat of failure, Dyson is investing 2 billion pounds ($2.6 billion) to the project and intends on having its first EV on the market by 2020.
Unlike all EVs currently on the market, Dyson’s vehicle will be different as it will utilize solid-state batteries, a technology the company already uses in its vacuum cleaners. Many believe that solid-state batteries will eventually replace the lithium-ion battery packs used throughout the industry thanks to their greater energy density, lighter weight and fast-charging abilities.
“Over past almost 20 years I’ve been developing new battery technology and new electric motors. Our digital motors are the fastest production electric motors in the world. A few years ago we bought Sakti3 which has some very interesting solid-state battery technology. But we’re also developing other forms of solid-state batteries,” Dyson said.
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