Dyson Wants to Make an Electric Car and Release It By 2020

Dyson, maker of notoriously expensive electric fans and vacuum cleaners, plans to venture into the realm of electric cars in the near future. The British company wants it first electric vehicle (EV) unveiled in 2020. To ensure this happens, Dyson says it has hired a workforce of over 400 people to work on the project at a breakneck pace.

Risking the cars of the future being called an ‘appliance,’  British inventor James Dyson, who is also the company’s founder and CEO, said that he will spend more than £2 billion (over P135 billion) to build a game-changing zero-emissions vehicle and release it within the time frame he allotted for his EV team.

In an interview, Dyson said that his company is not looking to build a sports car, and that its product will be a huge departure from the current crop of electric vehicles. He added that consumers will just have to ‘wait and see’ what their battery-powered vehicle is going to look like. Although Dyson didn’t reveal how much he plans his electric car to go for, he did suggest it will be expensive. “Maybe the better figure is how much of a deposit they would be prepared to put down,” he warned.

The British appliance brand proved that people are willing to pay a sizable sum for state-of-the-art technology. The brand’s blade-free fans, bag-less vacuum cleaners, and high-tech hair dryers are all well and good, but they don’t guarantee that Dyson will enjoy the same level of success with its electric cars. And there’s really no way of knowing as of the moment, as the Dyson staff has been extremely tight-lipped about details on the Dyson car.

In an email to his employees, Dyson wrote: “Competition for new technology in the automotive industry is fierce and we must do everything we can to keep the specifics of our vehicle confidential.”

The company recently hired executives who came from other car manufacturers such as Aston Martin and Tesla to help them catch up in the electric car race. Although a £2 billion investment may seem hefty, it’s dwarfed by what other carmakers far ahead in the tech have spent. Tesla has already spent close to $10 billion (over P511 billion)  in EV technology, and Daimler-Benz is set to pour the same amount into its own EV research and development.