Yesterday (Aug 27th), James Dyson, founder of Dyson Ltd., a British-based multinational technology company manufacturing household appliances such as vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, bladeless fans, heaters and hair dryers, announced to put aside GBP2 billion (US$2.6 billion) to develop the electric vehicle (EV) market, with expectation to see its EV division soon exceed other business entities in scale.
Aiming to build a robust ground in the competitive EV market, Dyson plans to pour GBP1 billion (US$1.3 billion) into battery R&D, and another GBP1 billion (US$1.3 billion) into the battery design and manufacturing process.
In the next few months, Dyson will visit some suppliers in the U.K. and Asia for business negotiation. He believed Dyson's “solid-state battery” technology is the firm's key to rival against other heavy-weight auto manufacturers; and a solid-state battery, which outperforms a lithium battery in energy efficiency and charge time, is also seen as a pivotal part by Toyota, a Japanese automotive manufacturer, of its electric car model to be launched in 2020.
Andrew Bergbaum, a supervisor of the U.S-based AlexParners consulting firm, said Dyson's timeline of launching an electric auto by 2020 was “very ambitious” and the company was likely to experience “years of losses” before recouping its investment.
In the past 2 years, Dyson has been soliciting experts in the auto field from several best-known auto titans like BMW, Aston Martin and Tesla, and has built a team of 400 engineers working hard for EV related projects. Dyson noted that nowadays the EV market is undoubtedly competitive, but Dyson is confident to see pay-offs eventually.
