Aston Martin chief executive Andy Palmer has expressed doubt over the ambitious electric vehicle plans of Dyson.
In September, the founder of the company, James Dyson, revealed that the company best known for making vacuum cleaners is developing an electric vehicle. The brand has reportedly dedicated 2 billion pounds ($2.6 billion) to the project and intends on launching the EV by 2020.
However, while recently speaking with Autocar, the head of Aston Martin said that the reported budget isn’t enough and that the proposed launch date is overly ambitious.
“I wish him the best of luck but on the numbers that have been reported, I know you won’t do it for that money, and you won’t do it in that timescale. At least, I know that I couldn’t,” Palmer said.
Palmer, who before coming to Aston Martin was the head of development in Nissan and was instrumental in creating the Leaf, revealed that the British automaker has had discussions with a number of manufacturers looking to create EVs and that all of them have underestimated the difficulties.
“We’ve had discussions with about 10 of them. Every single one has underestimated the difficulty of engineering a car to a budget and to an aggressive timescale. Some of them will get there, but always over budget and late,” he commented.
As if creating a single EV wasn’t already an aggressive enough plan, James Dyson told the media last year that the company would eventually like to have a whole range of cars – and despite all the difficulties he might encounter, he might indeed make it. Elon Musk had no previous experience in the field, and he did encounter many setbacks, but look where Tesla is now…
PHOTO GALLERY
