Dyson Launches Electric Car

[hyphen]

Jonesy23 said:

Cars are cars. The fact they're electric is no particular reason for Dyson, or Hotpoint, or whoever to be able to suddenly hop into building something completely unrelated to their current business and with an utterly different requirement for skills and level of complexity.

I agree.

James Dyson worked on the design a boat at the age of 23. Carried 3 tons at 50mph. Was used by the military, oil and construction industries and still sold today.

He should have stuck to what he knew and stayed designing boats, how dare he "suddenly hop into building something completely unrelated" to his boat business and have silly dreams of electric motors. He started with diesel boats and should have stuck to that,

[swisstoni]

Dyson must know of, or have developed, a step forward in battery tech to take the plunge now.
I can't think of any other reason to get in to a fairly full market of 'conventional' EV.

Exciting times ahead for EV fans with different makers coming in.

[hyphen]

swisstoni said:

Dyson must know of, or have developed, a step forward in battery tech to take the plunge now.

Dyson bought a battery company called Sakti3 (University of Michigan spin-off) in 2015 for £90m.

[TooMany2cvs]

hyphen said:

I agree.

James Dyson worked on the design a boat at the age of 23. Carried 3 tons at 50mph. Was used by the military, oil and construction industries and still sold today.

He should have stuck to what he knew and stayed designing boats, how dare he "suddenly hop into building something completely unrelated" to his boat business and have silly dreams of electric motors. He started with diesel boats and should have stuck to that,

Well, he was a junior member on the design team...


Now the ball-barrow. That was his first "invention"...

My mother still has an original 70s one. It's alright. Not that great.

[anonymous-user]

TooMany2cvs said:

I'm with Jonesy on this one. Tesla built their reputation on buying in Elises and electrifying them, then taking a lot of E-class Merc automotive componentry and electrifying it. They don't actually do anything very different to anybody else, just much bigger batteries - which is possible because the platform is designed for it, rather than being compromised by being shared with internal combustion cars. We're simply not seeing those from the mainstream manufacturers yet - because they're still hedging their bets on platforms. Why? Because they know that properly designing platforms is MONUMENTALLY expensive.

There's a large element of emperor's new clothes here.

Are Tesla somehow uniquely competent at designing the automotive platform, their first try way ahead of people who've been doing it for decades?
Why will Dyson be?

How do you know that Dyson hasn't been doing the same as early Tesla by taking production vehicles and electrifying them, or reverse engineering other vehicles?

They have stated that their EV program has been taking place in utmost secrecy, and therefore we can't rule out anything as they may have been doing it and we wouldn't know.

[TooMany2cvs]

Lord Marylebone said:

TooMany2cvs said:

There's a large element of emperor's new clothes here.

Are Tesla somehow uniquely competent at designing the automotive platform, their first try way ahead of people who've been doing it for decades?
Why will Dyson be?

How do you know that Dyson hasn't been doing the same as early Tesla by taking production vehicles and electrifying them, or reverse engineering other vehicles?

I'd be gobsmacked if they haven't been building mules or reverse engineering - or aren't in the process of doing so, since they're quoted as saying they've not really started on the chassis design as yet.

But, of course, that's not exactly something unusual, is it?

[WestyCarl]

Dyson core knowledge and skills (in which they are world leaders) are electric motors, batteries and managing airflow.

Seems like this is what EV's are mostly about.........

I suspect it'll be great (but very expensive)

[TooMany2cvs]

WestyCarl said:

Dyson core knowledge and skills (in which they are world leaders) are electric motors, batteries and managing airflow.

Seems like this is what EV's are mostly about.........

Really...?

All that normal cars are about is engines, fuel tanks and managing airflow?

[Otispunkmeyer]

Should feature underfloor dyson vacuums for ground-effect vectoring and perhaps more in the cabin for sucking farts out of the seat cushions.

[WestyCarl]

TooMany2cvs said:

Really...?

All that normal cars are about is engines, fuel tanks and managing airflow?

Not ICE cars, but EV's yes.

If you are leaders in batteries, switching tech, elec motors and managing airflow you have a very good start. (more so than Tesla for example anyway)

[hyphen]

TooMany2cvs said:

Really...?

All that normal cars are about is engines, fuel tanks and managing airflow?

Aren't most of the other parts made by 3rd party companies?

Also Dyson stole the product development director from Aston Martin, An engineer by trade, he had been with Aston since 1997. The bloke that comes in halfway in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHHT9XdX6oQ and he will no doubt have lots of contacts and be hiring people he knows and trusts.

Edited by hyphen on Wednesday 27th September 09:27

[Smiler.]

hyphen said:

Jonesy23 said:

Cars are cars. The fact they're electric is no particular reason for Dyson, or Hotpoint, or whoever to be able to suddenly hop into building something completely unrelated to their current business and with an utterly different requirement for skills and level of complexity.

I agree.

James Dyson worked on the design a boat at the age of 23. Carried 3 tons at 50mph. Was used by the military, oil and construction industries and still sold today.

He should have stuck to what he knew and stayed designing boats, how dare he "suddenly hop into building something completely unrelated" to his boat business and have silly dreams of electric motors. He started with diesel boats and should have stuck to that,

Yeah, but his new fangled washing machines were mostly spin.

[turbobloke]

Smiler. said:

hyphen said:

Jonesy23 said:

Cars are cars. The fact they're electric is no particular reason for Dyson, or Hotpoint, or whoever to be able to suddenly hop into building something completely unrelated to their current business and with an utterly different requirement for skills and level of complexity.

I agree.

James Dyson worked on the design a boat at the age of 23. Carried 3 tons at 50mph. Was used by the military, oil and construction industries and still sold today.

He should have stuck to what he knew and stayed designing boats, how dare he "suddenly hop into building something completely unrelated" to his boat business and have silly dreams of electric motors. He started with diesel boats and should have stuck to that,

Yeah, but his new fangled washing machines were mostly spin.

His vacuum cleaners really suck.

[Otispunkmeyer]

I have a friend at Dyson and he says they are really st hot on the old R&D work....really thorough. And this is coming from a guy who worked at RR previously. I mean he was quite surprised at just how much engineering R&D they do nd how varied. So they are capable, I have no doubt about that.

Whether they should be making a full car? I don't know, but I can't see why they couldn't provide major power train components; motors, batteries, power electronics, rotating machinery. I reckon they could even get into the autonomous driving game....its how their robot vacuum works and it uses a 360 degree vision camera to see its surroundings. All the value in an EV is in those things, the actual sheet metal, plastics and fabrics are surely the cheap bits (though not cheap to start making due to all the plant needed).

I do think they might struggle though, initially, with stuff like handling, NVH, chassis dynamics, ergonomics (I'm sorry, some of their stuff isn't easy...have you tried to empty one of their handhelds? by removing the bin? what a faff you almost need 3 hands; 1 to hold the button down and 2 to grapple the cylinder!).

[David87]

I'll take mine in yellow with purple doors, please.

In all seriousness, on first hearing this it sounds a bit crazy, but it may turn out to be very interesting indeed.

[lyonspride]

All things said and done, if hoover manufacturers want to make cars, then i'd rather see Dyson build a car than that muppet show over at Gtech.

[Jonesy23]

Otispunkmeyer said:

I have a friend at Dyson and he says they are really st hot on the old R&D work....really thorough. And this is coming from a guy who worked at RR previously. I mean he was quite surprised at just how much engineering R&D they do nd how varied. So they are capable, I have no doubt about that.

Well not that hot, if they were they might have noticed little issues in their products like the AirBlade hand driers; all very clever as a blower but they still haven't worked out what to do with the water landing on them when they're used by an actual person. Like, I don't know, fitting a drain and an evaporation plate? Or how to sort out a version with a bit more clearance.

Their ideas on suitable materials aren't always the best either. But maybe people have got used to needing spares or replacements for stuff that shouldn't break.

And I guess enough time has passed that he forgot the debacle of the washing machines?

Lord Marylebone said:

Jonesy23 said:

I'm sure lots of people will be jumping up and down supporting this for no particular reason but I'm going to remain a bit cynical

No particular reason?

I'm supporting him because it's a British company. There doesn't have to be any more reasons than that IMO.

Ahh, nationalism.

[motco]

Hoover got involved in electric cars in 1985 and look where that led to...*









*Sinclair C5 was built by Hoover in Merthyr Tydfil.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Jonesy23 said:

Otispunkmeyer said:

I have a friend at Dyson and he says they are really st hot on the old R&D work....really thorough. And this is coming from a guy who worked at RR previously. I mean he was quite surprised at just how much engineering R&D they do nd how varied. So they are capable, I have no doubt about that.

Well not that hot, if they were they might have noticed little issues in their products like the AirBlade hand driers; all very clever as a blower but they still haven't worked out what to do with the water landing on them when they're used by an actual person. Like, I don't know, fitting a drain and an evaporation plate? Or how to sort out a version with a bit more clearance.

Their ideas on suitable materials aren't always the best either. But maybe people have got used to needing spares or replacements for stuff that shouldn't break.

And I guess enough time has passed that he forgot the debacle of the washing machines?

Lord Marylebone said:

Jonesy23 said:

I'm sure lots of people will be jumping up and down supporting this for no particular reason but I'm going to remain a bit cynical

No particular reason?

I'm supporting him because it's a British company. There doesn't have to be any more reasons than that IMO.

Ahh, nationalism.

Yeah their choice of plastics is a bit iffy, plenty of wobbly goings on with our dysons. Probably more the accountants hand rather than the engineers, but they'd be right at home in the car world (for some makers...Toyota or Honda for example ). I have yet to need any spares of repairs to dysons we've owned though. I am not really sure what people are doing with theirs. Ours get hammered and used to suck up all sorts of crap, including water at times and they still work. Just needs you to remove and wash the filters from time to time, remove hair balls and hacksaw all the crap that gets wound round the brush. Same as a car or any device with moving parts... a little bit of care and maintenance and it should last you a good time.

Anyway, I still think powertrain parts is their best shot.... just the leave the rest of the car to someone else.

[arfursleep]

Dyson has been hoovering up electronics / electrical engineering graduates from universities and from other businesses at an impressive rate over the last few years, it's made recruiting a nightmare for smaller companies so I don't think there's a shortage of talent or engineers in his team.

And he's got plenty of money for the R&D side.