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The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle
- uptown 6y agoSadly, will not go to production: “We never normally show our aborted projects, however, it felt right to give a glimpse of the Dyson car to show what the team achieved.” https://twitter.com/Dyson/status/1268144470589165570 https://twitter.com/Dyson/status/1268144470589165570
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- clouddrover 6y agoThey claim their batteries are very good so they might end up licensing them to battery manufacturers.
- giobox 6y agoThis seems to me to be becoming the standard failed car startup “face save” excuse. Couldn’t make a car, but by George we can sell some slightly differently shaped batteries we patented! I’ll believe it when we see it.
- justin66 6y agoIt's surprisingly not ridiculous looking. That's the downfall of so many electric cars. It's not a good looking car, but so few are.
- joubert 6y agoCanceled: https://electrek.co/2020/05/18/dyson-cancelled-electric-car/ https://electrek.co/2020/05/18/dyson-cancelled-electric-car/
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sailfast 6y ago$180K per car to manufacture is really quite expensive!
- matthewfelgate 6y agoHow did they manage to make it so expensive per car?!
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIt's Dyson, they reinvent common household items - vacuums, fans, etc - then multiply the price.
- maigret 6y agoMaking a car cheap is the hard part. You have so many less known "luxury" manufacturers who will build cars on demand for tons of money. The scaling and cost management is the hard part.
- maxcan 6y agoHave you seen their vacuums?
- henvic 6y agoHow unfortunate it's not going to production. It probably would be a great Tesla contender at some point!
- steviedotboston 6y agoyeah, it would be great to have a company making cool electric cars that isn't run by a complete twat
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoWhat makes you think that James Dyson does not fit that description?
- IshKebab 6y agoWell he's never called someone a pedo on Twitter at least.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoNo, he's a more old school English type, who would do this https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/leave-voter-james-dyson-hoovers-up-5m-in-eu-farm-subsidies-xpvqsvt0g https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/leave-voter-james-dyson-h... and this https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-dyson-singapore/brexit-backer-dyson-moves-vacuum-giants-hq-to-singapore-idUSKCN1PG205 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-dyson-singapore/b... and this https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/dyson-will-not-supply-ventilators-to-nhs-to-treat-covid-19 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/dyson-will-not...
- arethuza 6y agoThe subtitle on that last one is "Engineering firm has been told by the government that their services are no longer required" - not sure why that is Dyson's fault!
- objclxt 6y ago> Electric cars are considerably more expensive to make and manufacturers are making big losses on the sale of each car. This is rather disingenuous. The Model 3 was one of the most popular new cars sold in the UK last year, Tesla isn’t losing money on those sales. You can’t do a market analysis that ignores the main competitor. If I had to hazard a guess, the real reason James Dyson pulled the plug is a) EV development and tooling for manufacturer is hugely expensive, and b) Dyson is private, and James Dyson doesn’t want to accept investment or inject his own capital into the effort.
- helsinkiandrew 6y agoAgreed, a couple of billion will give you a nice EV design but a car is a hugely more complex and expensive product to manufacture at scale at a competitive price than a fan or cleaner.
- mikekchar 6y agoI agree that the comment is disingenuous, however, I believe the problem for Dyson was that the car he wanted to make was just too expensive. It's not necessarily the case that all electric vehicles are too expensive (and clearly when you look at the EVs in SE Asia, there are some pretty cheap cars). I'd be surprised if he didn't already anticipate the upfront costs. I think it's more that having made the prototype, he realised he couldn't make a product that will disrupt the market at a reasonable price and therefore threw in the towel.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> he realised he couldn't make a product that will disrupt the market at a reasonable price Dyson's whole lifelong strategy is to disrupt the product and the price. When his vacuum cleaner came out the price was astronomically expensive. People were dumfounded - who would pay so much? But the product was better and people accepted the new price. It still seems high today but it was so successful it somewhat permanently moved the needle on what people think was reasonable. He also tried this with: fans, washing machines, hair dryers, hand dryers. Some less successful, but an unexpectedly or apparently unreasonably high price is probably deliberately part of his approach.
- helsinkiandrew 6y agoStrange there's no mention of the solid-state batteries, that may have given it an edge over competition.
- ben_bai 6y agoI was hoping on some news on those, too. Only this sentence on the page that's interesting. Quote: The aluminium battery pack casing was flexible in design to allow for a variety of possible sizes and types of battery cell solution to be fitted throughout the life of the vehicle platform without the need for any significant re-engineering.
- sah2ed 6y agoSuch a flexible design in a part that is out of view and non-serviceable by the owner only adds avoidable costs to the total costs of manufacturing each car.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoMust be some tech than can be repurposed/pivoted? Perhaps offered to other car companies?
- mack1001 6y agoThe only way to be successful with EVs is to have substantial scale and that scale needs 10’s of billions of dollars, which means public markets or huge private rounds which also means dilution. Many things that are probably unpalatable to Mr.Dyson.
- yardie 6y agoSadly, I think in trying to make an EV fit into a market full of ICE cars has blinded the public, designers, and engineers that a sedan is not the only form factor an EV can take. Something like the Renault Twizy[0] is an excellent use of EV tech. And it's technically classified as a moped or scooter. For now we're constructing 2000kg wagons to move 200kg of cargo and that just doesn't seem efficient. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twizy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twizy
- Already__Taken 6y agoALL the early green cars looked stupid like this or ultra futuristic and no-one wants them. Tesla came a long and made one that just made a good looking car.
- yardie 6y agoAnd people have also stupidly convinced themselves that what they need is a petrol powered 4WD SUV that can climb mountains, ford rivers, carry groceries and commute to work. It must also be capable of doing the weekly cross country road trip, apparently. This can all be yours for 84 payments of $500/month. No one wants EVs because of the same stupid question that gets asked and answered repeatedly, "this would be great, but what do I do when the battery runs out?"
- goatforce5 6y agoI think the UK press would compare anything like that to the Sinclair C5, thus forming public opinion, and thus leaving the whole project dead in the water in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5
- signamos 6y agoMoved company to Singapore to pay less taxes while pushing for Brexit because UK's lost sovereignty and the "EU tax". Good vacuums but he's a douche.
- cmrdporcupine 6y agoGood vacuums? Where? Reliability issues and the plastic chassis broke not long after purchase. I won't pay the premium again, that's for sure.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- barbegal 6y agoI agree, have you ever seen a cleaning company use a Dyson vacuum cleaner? If they were the best and most reliable then they would all be using them.
- m0xte 6y agoYep. They all use Numatic units here these days.
- fyfy18 6y agoAnd they are made in the UK still, unlike Dyson.
- setpatchaddress 6y agoI've seen Disney use the stick vacuums at Disney World hotels.
- cjrp 6y agoTotally, have a V-something cordless and the whole thing is just plastic. Even the hinges and stressed parts on the charging dock, I'm just waiting for it to snap.
- barbegal 6y agoIt seems they really got out of their depth with this project. There are a lot of photos and videos of aesthetic things that (arguably) Dyson is good at such as the steering wheel user interface, the shaping of the wheel rims and the colour palettes for the paint job. But there is very little evidence of hard engineering, only one grainy video of the prototype car actually running (the other videos appearing to be the car running are definitely good quality renders). As Elon Musk put it "For cars it's maybe 100 times harder to design the manufacturing system than the car itself." and I think as soon as it dawned on them the scale of the manufacturing process to build this car and all the precisely engineered systems they got cold feet. Yes conceptually a car is similar to a vacuum cleaner, there's a motor, a battery, a control system, a chassis and bodywork but they are in a completely different league in terms of the scale and engineering. A car needs to be able to run safely without faults for 8 hours a day 365 days a year whereas Dyson vacuum cleaners tend to have a lot of reliability problems even when using for an hour each week.
- adwww 6y agoThey also struggle with the culture of software. From what I've heard from employees, software is looked down on by management and is not really something they 'get'. Things like app connectivity are after thoughts and not core to their products. A good chunk of what makes a Tesla unique is the radically different software and digital user experience. Dyson (the company) are not ready to embrace the fast moving culture that enables that.
- ForHackernews 6y ago> Things like app connectivity are after thoughts and not core to their products. Good! God help us the day something like a fan or a vacuum cleaner needs "app connectivity".
- adwww 6y agoTrue. Although, I have a secondhand fan / air purifier of theirs, and in theory the smart features of that are ideal - setting timers, voice control, etc. But it's crippled by poor UI, only supporting Alexa, and an arbitrary limit of how many schedules you can set, etc.
- Neil44 6y agoInteresting how the battery container is a stressed member of the chassis, I don't think any other manufacturer is doing that.
- natch 6y agoIn Teslas the battery container also is structural, or a stressed member of the chassis as you put it. There are many aspects here copied from Tesla or coincidentally the same, although he conveniently leaves out mentioning that fact at any opportunity. For example the lowering of the car at speed... copied from Model S.
- Neil44 6y agoAre you sure Tesla batteries are structural? They don’t look it and I haven’t heard that claimed before. Lowering at speed has been around for a long time it wasn’t invented by Tesla.
- natch 6y agoTo your question yes, it’s well known and has been widely covered. It’s always interesting to me that absence of knowledge of something is taken as a basis for believing that the thing is not happening. Lowering not invented by Tesla, fair point. It seems I do the same thing too.
- Neil44 6y agoI feel like I know more than most people about it, I've seen Sandy Munro and Ritchie B Kidd tear them apart and talk about them, I've just googled tesla battery structural and found nothing. They are a thin metal stamping held up by a few bolts. The one in the Dyson pics looks like its built into a deep aluminium floorpan rather than being a separately cased item.
- clouddrover 6y ago> For example the lowering of the car at speed... copied from Model S. Many cars have adaptive suspension. It's not unique to Tesla. Audi has taken the next step and has implemented predictive suspension: https://www.motor1.com/news/360532/audi-a8-predictive-air-suspension/ https://www.motor1.com/news/360532/audi-a8-predictive-air-su...
- matthewfelgate 6y agowhy didn't they copy the Tesla strategy and start with a high-end electric sports car?
- hodder 6y agoAmong other reasons: 1) High end electrics are a very small market that is now overly crowded: Model III Performance, Model S Performance, Tesla Roadster (may never be produced, but in consideration of most high end buyers), Porsche Taycan, Audi E-Tron, BMW iX3, and more announced almost weekly. Almost none of these will do well given the limited market size for electric cars in this price range. 2). Dyson is proven and could raise capital if they needed to without a marketable proof of concept. They could have IPO'd a sub and raised money. Unlike when Tesla started, electric cars are now proven to work - maybe not in a profitable business model yet, but they are proven to work. They don't need to show off a high end sports car to prove this.
- gorgoiler 6y agoVehicles are weird. I feel like we try to jam all use cases into one, when I really need three different things: 1/ To go to work and back. Same route everyday. Not very long. Currently use a bicycle, but I’ve used mass transit for these very common in-out routes in the past. 2/ Small local journeys. I can’t collect 6kg of wheat from the local farm with a bike or a bus. Taxi is viable if I could get them to wait 20 minutes while I hang around the farm, or perhaps I could use two taxis to get out and back, which seems wasteful and the market for getting a cab from the country back to the city is challenging vs the city to countryside version. 3/ Long distance journeys. City to city is easy and pleasant with mass transit. Harder with a family and luggage, especially if the destination is not in a town or city. Personal vehicle works well here, and it’s getting more common to be doing long distance journeys from suburbia to non-city destinations, for me. It felt like I could do without a personal vehicle for a long time. I bought a petrol car five years ago and finally live somewhere where I need it as of two years ago. Now that we’re all potentially migrating away from big cities (a real trend I see, albeit anecdotally) I feel like my ideal fleet of personal vehicles would be: a/ big lovely slow commute bicycle b/ local BEV for cargo c/ something else for long range What would be fantastic would be to combine b and c. Something where I could carry a few kg of 18650s for a 10 mile errand range, and load it up with 1000kg of cells for a 400 mile round trip (or 500kg if my parents would foot the bill to recharge the long-range incarnation of my mythical modular BEV, something which feels socially unviable with anything other than trips to see close family.)
- cjrp 6y agoCould #2 be covered by a car club / rental-by-the-hour kind of thing? ZipCar in the UK is about £8-10/hour with no monthly, so if you're not making the journey frequently that could be suitable? Obviously requires an available car nearby though.
- londons_explore 6y agoZipcar isn't profitable because it hasn't really hit critical mass. The zipcar in my street is used maybe only 2 hours per week. It just feels too expensive to use. Also, the fact you can't just park it anywhere when you're done... I wonder if perhaps some kind of "Pay £100 to have unlimited car use for the month" type scheme might work better?
- dariusj18 6y agoSo many bad design decisions, those seats are the worst though. Good luck cleaning out all those areas between cushions.
- detritus 6y agoWhy, they'd have had the perfect accessory for one of their vacuum cleaners to do just that!
- ycombonator 6y agoThis is what Apple car would have looked like if Jobs was still alive.
- HackOfAllTrades 6y agoAnd once you got in the car it would lock the doors and keep you a prisoner. An Apple EV would only charge from Certified Apple electricity. Hell, Jobs would have required an Apple ICE to only accept fuel from an Apple gas station.
- awinter-py 6y agoI like the part where they project the wind tunnel flowlines on the physical model of the car That looks like science
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kindatrue 6y agoThe video that says "See the Dyson car on the road" is so strangely fake. So you're driving down 6th ave away from the Madison Square Garden sign promoting the Knicks? There's not going to be a double yellow line because it's a one way street. Perfectly smooth road in Manhattan? Nope. Here's what the area really looks like: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7487638,-73.9922756,3a,75y,355.72h,83.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4bPdERzIHZyr9FeF_cO4Pw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192 https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7487638,-73.9922756,3a,75y,3... Credit to whomever thought adding "Modells" would make it look more locally authentic though.
- cityzen 6y agoDyson seems like a company/brand mired in being clever vs. actually creating anything of practical utility. We have a dyson stick vacuum thing that was ~$300 and it can't even pick up cheerios. The airblade hand dryer supposedly spreads something like 60x more germs than regular dryers and over 1000x more than regular warm air hand dryers. This car thing apparently didn't work out. $400 hair dryer? $1,700 dyson roomba competitor? I guess every brand has its fans but this is one I just don't get. I'll never purchase another dyson product after being bamboozled with that damn vacuum.
- nicoburns 6y agoYou might be right about the germs, but the dyson hand dryers are a lot better at drying than regular ones.
- rsync 6y agoThere is an idea ... that driver-critical, frequently used information (like speed, temps, trip odometer, etc.) can be displayed, offset, in the center of the car. You can see this "idea" deployed in the Tesla model 3. This is a clownish, absurd idea that, were it not for actual, extant production examples would be mistaken for parody ... they would be assumed to be in jest. If you are a designer and you think there is any positive value in this design, find a new job: you are a clown.
- c22 6y agoIf you put these functions in the middle of the car you can make an opposite-handed-drive model for cheaper.
- sib 6y agoAs someone who thought that that was exactly the reason I'd "never" by a Model 3, but then bought one and now daily drive it... I'll say that those things (speed, temps, trip odometer) rarely seem driver-critical to me. * When driving, you typically norm your speed relative to those around you, right? You can easily glance over and see the speedometer if you need to if you're alone on the road and worried about speeding (or you could just flick the right-hand control stalk down and let the cruise control engage). * What temperature is driver-critical in a BEV? If we're talking about internal air temp, if you're hot, make it cooler; if you're cool, make it hotter. Who cares what the actual number is? * Trip odometer seems even further from driver-critical. It's visible with a swipe from the big screen, but I've only checked it once in 18 months of owning the car; in fact, I've never even reset it. I guess it still exists for a reason (when young, we used to use them as a backup to an inaccurate gas gauge in an old Volvo, but now you have much more accurate info on-screen.
- potatochup 6y agoThere are plenty of Japanese cars that have been doing this for decades to reduce the complexity of RHD vs LHD.
- hugoromano 6y agoCan't trust Dyson with batteries, my worst experience ever. Ended my problems by ordering via AliExpress from China at one-tenth the price bought from Dyson.
- scotty79 6y agoPhotos on this page seem like James Dyson showing off pretty, custom car, he ordered his people to make for him personally.
- maharajatever 6y agoDyson is a con with a big marketing budget. I had their "revolutionary" cyclone nonsense for three years thinking I have a great vacuum, until my cleaner complained that literally everyone else had a decent vacuum cleaner and mine was useless. I bought a different one - it uses about a third of the energy, and usability and capability-wise it's on a different planet. And it's cheaper! Not to mention the incredibly useless hand dryers in half of UK pubs. Dyson is the perfect example of how if you strike the right(???) note with your marketing you can sell any crap at a premium price.
- Smaug123 6y agoI don't know which of their hand dryers you're using, but we have the Airblade V at work and they're great. But you do need to have lots of air pressure; I've encountered some which somehow don't blow very hard, and they're only a little better than a standard dryer. You want one that's installed so that you can feel it flensing you every time you use it.
- nmeofthestate 6y agoThe Dyson Mains Electric vehicle suffered from range problems.
- jxramos 6y agoI quite enjoyed this exchange at the end I even took one on Blue Peter and demonstrated it to Anthea Turner! (embedded video @ 1:48) Anthea: What do the manufacturers think of it? James: Well they quite like it, but they're not doing anything about it. Anthea: Are steps being taken to do anything about it? James: Well no unfortunately we need to pass some laws so that people are forced to fit it. --nothing like invoking the coercive power of the state to force things on others.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- designdesign 6y agoUnderstandable that they don't want to take this on, it's a massive undertaking beyond a lot of consumer products. I do wish they could contract out some design or other manufacturers would consult with them. Reducing distraction with physical buttons on a steering wheel is so much more thoughtful than tossing in a touchscreen and pushing everything to software (I realize cars have some controls on the steering wheel, but it's not enough). Every time I see a modern car I'm kind of shocked by how distracting the interior is. At least voice interfaces have improved somewhat.