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Having hoovered up £175m of government funding, employed a good chunk of the UKs automotive engineering talent, spent some of his own money and alienated 100% of the remainers with the intention to make them in Singapore .
Now it’s all over. “Not economically viable” is the excuse. Dyson reliability jokes aside, was it inevitable? Surely it’s not THAT hard to come up with something starting from scratch with Dyson flair and innovation?
I know batteries are expensive but surely if the Yanks can do it, surely us plucky Brits can? (Brexity joke)
I’m very disappointed, I was looking forward to seeing what they come up with. Feel so sorry for the 500+ employees now it’s been canned.
Comments?
Am I terrible for thinking he saw a chance to get some cash from the tories, pi$$ed it away and shut up shop when it dried up?
I never expected him to develop one just develop battery tech to sell.
In short Dyson has found the “simple” automotive industry is actually a lot harder to enter than they’d realised. Back to your ball wheelbarrow Dyson.
Anyone else think of this when they read Ball Wheelbarrow?
He cant make decent vacuum cleaners.
I'm not surprised this has failed.
Am I wrong to suspect that he has successfully alienated at least 48% of his potential UK electric car market before even starting?
I’ve had his vacuums, Still have one, pretty good imo, however, build and retail cars? No chance. I’m not a Tesla fanboy but I salute Elon giving it a try at mixing up the automotive market and disrupt a few of the old guard.
Devious dick, deluded dick, or just a dick. I currently can't decide.
Am I wrong to suspect that he has successfully alienated at least 48% of his potential UK electric car market before even starting?
Given the Brexit demographics, I’d say more like 95% (of the UK anyway)
Well Tesla is $1bn in the hole and is only propped up by the army of investors who keep on pumping in the cash and keeping the company afloat as if Tesla was some form of religious cult they're all obsessed with. It won't survive for long now the big established car manufacturers are getting in on the act. Teslas are good cars but they've had the market to themselves long enough now and the big established companies are coming and know how to make good cars too and, unlike Tesla, by the numbers and at a sensible cost - which is the real key to success. The EV market is going to get big very quickly and the competition will be brutal and most of Tesla's competitors are backed by governments and not fickle investors who could pull the plug on the cash lifeline at any time. But maybe the real genius of Tesla is that they were never in it for the cars, but the battery development and will ditch the cars and just sell the batteries to the other car companies.
Dyson has realised the challenges of getting the production costs down and realised it was not going to work commercially. It's a shame, but this story is not necessarily over. He will have developed a load of technology protected under valuable patents and IP that he'll sell licences to the other EV manufacturers, and the income from which will keep the millions flowing into the Dyson company for many years to come. Maybe not a daft business model after all. Let the others take the big risks with the big investments in huge car production plants and you just licence the technology and sit back and count the cash coming in.
You may not like him, but the guy certainly isn't a dick. He made a million from a wheelbarrow for crying out loud. They guy's a genius. The only dicks are those that judge people they don't know by the way they voted in a referendum and who dared to express their opinion in a supposedly free and democratic country. The adults left the room a long time ago in this debate.
wobbliscotte
They guy’s a genius. The only dicks are those that judge people they don’t know by the way they voted in a referendum and who dared to express their opinion in a supposedly free and democratic country.
That's not why I think he is a dick. Its due to the utter hypocrisy he has exhibited.
By all means state the case for Brexit but at least have the balls to stand by what you say.
So yeah, he's a dick. He broke rule 1 in a big way.
Amazon and google have long played in car AI tech but neither bothering with making cars despite their billions, Tesla struggling to turn profit despite achieving mass production, Dyson is a minnow by comparison. I think profit in car production is very hard to achieve and Dyson finally realised, even more so in this age of massive shift to electric uncertainty. Even the big boyz are going to struggle with the R&D investment v uncertainty of timing the EV shift v tight margins v dealer upheaval to the 'New Order' v all the other associated stuff.
I had hoped it would be an opportunity to reset the paradigm in the way Issigonis did with the mini (or something) but I suspect the plague of ridiculously large, powerful, heavy, "safe" cars filled with soft touch plastics is too ingrained and impossible to break out of.
Shame, I thought he'd be more brave than that.
Took the money and ran? Built a business on products that required the owners/users to buy newer models as their previous models failed in spectacular fashion... and thats another point, it's really just a fashion brand innit.... he (not him) but is designers had some great ideas that changed rechargeable vacuums and such and I hope they at least moved out of Dyson before it went pop..
He also changed the model pricing which meant that other manufacturers could up their prices to close to Dyson, then develop/copy the designs and we have a whole new pricing to market platform.
But £400 for a vacuum?
No fanks.
He alienated the Remainers because he chose to move his production facilities abroad, when he claimed that Brexit would be good for UK Business, and he then realised 90% of the population thought that double standards... and we stopped buying his products.
Ha bloody ha.
All I hope now is that the skills that his workforce have are able to find suitable employment, but since all Dysons co-horts have absolutely no idea what they are doing, why they are even doing it and the fact that the UK has pretty much had enough of this Brexit bollocks means the employees will face long dole queues...
I'm going to go with "deluded dick". And that having worked there too.
Ref Tesla You need to remeber the US Gov is also a massive investor, via the subs it's given elon, i understood without that, they would have gone under a long time ago.
Back to cars, wobbli hit the nail on the head. Existing auto makers simply wont make things that loose money the way Tesla does, so it's been slow becuase they know that "their" market will be huge in comparison to Tesla and as such the exposure to liability much higher as well.
Oh, and I don't think there were any UK production facilities to move abroad. There are plenty of remain-supporting reasons to be sickened by his contributions to the debate, but this is not one of them.
Having hoovered up £175m of government funding,
Frankly, that deserved more love than it got.
bikebouy
I hope they at least moved out of Dyson before it went pop..
All I hope now is that the skills that his workforce have are able to find suitable employment,
You do realise Dyson hasn't gone pop don't you? He's just backed out of his automotive project. The rest of his business is still going great for him.
Well, thats good news then. And No I didn't know that.
I still hope the skilled folks get other jobs when it does go pop.
I like my Dyson handheld vac, it's certainly over-priced though. I can't say I was ever that excited about them doing a car, it's difficult to see what they'd do that Tesla wasn't already doing. Tesla has two big things in it's favour, the motor (widely accepted as the best EV motor currently available) and their battery tech. I would have thought Dyson would have had to spend billions to come up with either a significantly better motor or a significantly better battery. Where Tesla falls down is the quality of the actual car, production QC and retail distribution and I couldn't see that Dyson would magically get that right straight away either.
Given Tesla are about to bring Gigafactory 3 online and churn out cars for the Chinese (and possibly wider Asian market) their future looks bright to me. I'm not a Tesla fanboi and I think it's borderline criminal the false expectations Elon has set recently over the level of self-driving capability that will be available within the next couple of years but they have succeeded already - the amount of cars they're selling now (compared with the similar mid-market luxury brands) is pretty amazing. I also used to think that once the mainstream manufacturers started taking EVs seriously they'd soon force Tesla out but I don't see that being the case anymore. That said Elon never really wanted Tesla to become a mainstream manufacturer so it's possible they'll start more partnerships soon and focus more on the battery side (manufacturing as much as R&D).
Rivian is another interesting one, a lot of people here have written them off but with the Amazon tie-up and some of their other partnerships/tie-ups and tech they've got they could well sew up the mid market SUV/pick-up sector.
Well Tesla is $1bn in the hole and is only propped up by the army of investors who keep on pumping in the cash and keeping the company afloat as if Tesla was some form of religious cult they’re all obsessed with. It won’t survive for long now the big established car manufacturers are getting in on the act. Teslas are good cars but they’ve had the market to themselves long enough now and the big established companies are coming and know how to make good cars too and, unlike Tesla, by the numbers and at a sensible cost – which is the real key to success. The EV market is going to get big very quickly and the competition will be brutal and most of Tesla’s competitors are backed by governments and not fickle investors who could pull the plug on the cash lifeline at any time. But maybe the real genius of Tesla is that they were never in it for the cars, but the battery development and will ditch the cars and just sell the batteries to the other car companies.
Investors are pumping the cash into Tesla because they can see their future potential. The "established" manufacturers are still way too invested in ICE tech to seriously flood the market with EVs over the next decade. It would be suicide as they currently depend on ICE sales for about 99% of their income. So for them EV is still more a PR/compliance exercise. Tesla don't have any of this legacy baggage and that's why they are so successful in the BEV market. They are still very much in the production ramp up stage with heavy capex on infrastructure, but unit profit margin is actually one of the highest in the industry. Driving a Model X for the last 2 years has been enough to convince me that ICE cars are now dead in the water and that Tesla has a bright future - they simply backed the right horse and fully committed to it. I reckon JLR is far more likely to go under than Tesla in the next decade.
I still hope the skilled folks get other jobs when it does go pop.
he has said that there are enough vacancies for most of them to be absorbed into other parts of the business, and 'For those that cannot, or do not wish to, find alternate roles, we will support them fairly and with the respect deserved'
Dyson employs people from many different places/races and actively supports getting more women into science and engineering, but he gets no credit for that amongst the brexit bigots on this forum.
I’ve no idea why people get annoyed at Dyson and his Brexit views.
Oh wait!
https://twitter.com/bydonkeys/status/1102449014463713280?s=21
Apple gave up. Wasn't surprised to learn Dyson have too.
Shame we'll never know what Uncle Steve was dreaming up.
I like to think it was a Sinclair C5 type of thing, that actually worked and everyone wanted.
Dyson is undoubtedly a cock-end. But after I tweeted their customer service about a problem with one of the vacuum attachments they posted a new one straight out to me. Of course I paid for it 100x in the price of the vacuum, but still ....
That’s the annoying thing despite what people claim they’re vacuums are pretty good. I’ve owned 2 in almost 20 years both are still working one is used as ash vacuum which kills vacuums but it still keeps going.
I had one of the original "pull along" yellow things.. at first it was brilliant, then it broke about 9mths later.. on taking it to the tip I was confronted with a mini skip full of them.
I'm sure his products have been improved over the years, thats a good thing, because the early stuff was crap and I for one fell for it.
It's really encouraging to hear his companies policies for ethnic and race diversity is robust and gender too, if theres anything we've learned over the recent years is Gender and Race have no baring on whether someone is good at their job or not..
Eh lyingblohard...
I had one of the original “pull along” yellow things.. at first it was brilliant, then it broke about 9mths later.. on taking it to the tip I was confronted with a mini skip full of them.
Probably from people who throw things away after a few months instead of maybe trying to fix them or return them under warranty.
As FuzzyWuzzy points out, Tesla’s long term strategy isn’t cars it’s batteries.
At the moment they’re trying to pump prime the market so it gets to the tipping point where customers start defaulting to EVs first and all the associated charging infrastructure needed to support that gets put in place.
By which point the major automotive companies will be making great EVs and Tesla can drop back into their long term plan to make shed loads of money from battery tech. They need to create the market for that first.
I guess he realised Dyson can't make anything that doesn't suck.
Dyson send you bits out if they break.
Yeah they do some repair deal iirc but I’ve never needed to use it.
he has said that there are enough vacancies for most of them to be absorbed into other parts of the business
From my relative who now jobless this sounds like PR. I'd doubt many automotive engineers really want a move into the home appliance arena anyway.
I'd bet he knew he'd never manage to make a viable vehicle.
Tesla are supposed to only exist as platform to develop Battery tech, I'd hope they sold some of their patents to VW because VW (via Porsche in the first instance) aren't ****ing about.
The Taycan might cost more than an S, and it might have a slightly shorter range, but they seem to have cracked a few things that Tesla couldn't - namely cooler running batteries which are more efficient and far faster charging times about 22mins v 40mins. Of course, the infrastructure isn't really there for either at the moment.
If the Porsche is built like a Porsche (I.E. a lot better than Tesla) which it will be then Tesla has some real competition, especially as, well it's a Porsche. Their will no doubt be a cheaper Audi, a cheaper still VW and cheaper again Seat and Skoda versions of the same tech in a few years.
I wouldn't be surprised if Dyson, already on the ropes trying to complete with Tesla, took one look at the Taycan and thought "nah, we've had it chaps".
The Taycan might cost more than an S, and it might have a slightly shorter range, but they seem to have cracked a few things that Tesla couldn’t – namely cooler running batteries which are more efficient and far faster charging times about 22mins v 40mins. Of course, the infrastructure isn’t really there for either at the moment.
When you compare them a bit more objectively, there are actually a lot of plus points for the Tesla:-
https://insideevs.com/reviews/369359/porsche-taycan-vs-tesla-model-s/
Anyway I'm both a Tesla and Porsche fanboy, so I'm happy there are more EV choices. But the Taycan price has gone well beyond the original hype. It's a non-starter for me until there are sub-£100k variants and those are likely to be lacking Tesla performance.
Some analysis apparently from car industry people here
https://www.autocar.co.uk/opinion/industry/opinion-why-dyson-failed
Further to some of above comments on Dyson, being a commercial and design 'genius' and being a disapointment as a human being are not mutually exclusive
being a commercial and design ‘genius’ and being a disapointment as a human being are not mutually exclusive
as you are implying that he is a dissappointment as a human being what are you basing that on - that he is a brexit supporter ?
or is it just a case of 'it takes one to know one' ?
I had one of the original “pull along” yellow things.. at first it was brilliant, then it broke about 9mths later.. on taking it to the tip I was confronted with a mini skip full of them.
Many years ago an elderly customer asked me to take 3 dysons to the local tip, all broke, took one apart,and it looked nicely made,the other had melted at the switch, the final one the drive wheel pulley had melted, dyson just said we dont carry spares for the final one, its to old.
So off to the tip,hi viz man grabbed hold of them before they went into the electricals skip, he said we have a container just for dysons as the plastic used is high quality and bright coloured, we get good money for them and the motor, and that they got lots of them.
Turner Guy..... Charming, and perhaps says more about you than me.
if you actually think about my comment, I did not actually say I thought he was a disappointing human being, just simply that is possible to be one to many people, as shown on this thread, and yet successful in life. It isn't binary
In reality being a "design genius" and producing a profitable passenger car have almost nothing in common. Myriad are the companies that got caught up in the romance of building a car only to have the stark reality of the shear size of the task bring them crashing back to the ground.
Lets face it, too many people concentrate on the fun bits, like the engine (or motors) and the performance, or the styling, but a modern passenger car is mostly dull. Its made up of tens of thousands of parts that are extremely complex and all necessary, and yet are the ones that very few people even think about. From door seals to windscreen demisting, bonnet catches to rear number plate lights and seat belt anchorages to coolant header tanks, a modern car is very, very, very tedious to develop. The existing OEs now have 50 or more years, and sometimes as many as 7 or 8 generations of any given model history to fall back on. They have proven supply chains, sign off criteria, parts networks and marketing departments all full of tens of thousands of very experienced, very industrious people.
The thought that somehow you could come into the market place fresh with a viable passenger car simply because you know a little bit about motors is about the same as me trying to build a space shuttle because i once took my toaster apart and fixed it.
I actually consulted to Dyson on the powertrain for this new car, and whilst the team of (very smart) engineers was doing a decent job in that department, it was pretty clear that overall the horse was somewhat riderless and lacking focus and direction. Without a confirmed business plan, it was, imo, always an extremely high risk exercise!
So dyson make highly engineered brightly coloured plastic household stuff,at very expensive prices,sold in high street stores and the internet,then decided to make a new car,something mainstream car makers do for a job every day,but nowadays car makers are sharing the same basic platform and putting a body on top,car makers also have the parts supply in local dealers,and local dealers who just sell that make of vehicle and trained staff to repair them.
Dyson have none of the above as yet, and would need to buy into a dealer network and supply chain,a very expensive proposition, so they tried to sell the concept of the car and nobody wanted it.
But theyve most probably developed enough of the car idea to sell bits onto other manufacturers.
“ UK taxpayers gave around £5 million to Dyson to support the electric car project that it scrapped this week, the company says.
James Dyson told staff yesterday that, while the firm had developed a “fantastic” car, it wasn’t commercially viable and he would be ending the project, which was launched in 2016. The electric car unit employs 500 people, who the company hopes to redeploy.
However, the project involved the UK government giving millions of pounds in funding. The firm told New Scientist that it had drawn down £5 million of a £16 million grant to support the project.
Dyson says the money was spent as intended, on research and development. A spokesperson says: “The funding we have received from the UK government is to support Dyson’s research and development of battery technologies. Our development of battery technology will not change in light of this announcement.”
However, government documents have previously shown the money was primarily destined to help development of an electric car.
“The government is funding Dyson to develop a new battery electric vehicle at their headquarters in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. This will secure £174m of investment in the area, creating over 500 jobs, mostly in engineering,” said the National Infrastructure Delivery Plan published in 2016.”
The only way you can possibly get into mainstream automotive manufacturing is if you have a genuine USP like Tesla did. That and seriously deep pockets. Dyson would have faced direct competition from both Tesla and the established players trying to catch up. He was 10 years too late to get it off the ground and didn't have an obvious USP. Tesla struggled in the early days without any competition to speak of and is still only just keeping its head above water both financially and in production capacity. The chances of another start-up making it today are pretty remote - especially in the UK!
if you actually think about my comment, I did not actually say I thought he was a disappointing human being
I've looked and that is pretty much what you implied, not the rest of your excuse...
being a commercial and design ‘genius’ and being a disapointment as a human being are not mutually exclusive
no mention of different peoples perception
The chances of another start-up making it today are pretty remote – especially in the UK!
A lot of people said that before he went from pretty much nothing to one of the biggest domestic appliance manufacturers. Certainly worth a shot imo and even it didn't pan out they (and we) will probably get quite a bit from it
The information derived from the development work on battery and high-performance electric motors will not be abandoned or wasted, Dyson’s high-speed electric motors used in his appliances, scaled for automotive use could bring all sorts of advantages in the future; not just in cars, but electric motorcycles and maybe even bicycles, and any new insights into battery technologies won’t go amiss either.
Moving manufacturing abroad annoyed lots of people, but like many industries before him, in particular the cycle industry, it’s become ever more difficult to mass-manufacture stuff in the West and keep it cheap, the east has a vast infrastructure directed specifically towards manufacturing items like vacuum cleaners, fans, etc.
Dyson kept the R&D at Malmesbury, and expanded it dramatically, in fact one of the factors that precipitated the manufacturing being moved abroad was Malmesbury Council’s refusal to allow the expansion of the factory, saying it would be detrimental to the visual appearance of the town! I believe he now employs more people in the town than when the factory was there.
A lot of people said that before he went from pretty much nothing to one of the biggest domestic appliance manufacturers. Certainly worth a shot imo and even it didn’t pan out they (and we) will probably get quite a bit from it
But he had a genuine USP with his bagless vacs. There was nothing like them on the market when he started.
But he had a genuine USP with his bagless vacs. There was nothing like them on the market when he started
And it was turned down by every major vacuum cleaner producer at the time.
The £5 million of taxpayer money really doesn't look bad value. If you compare it to the various Innovate UK vehicle grants and projects for anything green / low carbon / lightweight then this has probably created more direct jobs (even if only for 3 years) and IP legacy than most.
Dyson send you bits out if they break.
I've never been able to test this with Numatic as my 25 year old 'Henry' just keeps on going.
Made in Somerset too.
Dyson are purely style over substance, not surprised they're so popular on here
What vacuum cleaner for e-gravel bike camping?
I’ve never been able to test this with Numatic as my 25 year old ‘Henry’ just keeps on going.
Made in Somerset too.
Dyson are purely style over substance, not surprised they’re so popular on here
What vacuum cleaner for e-gravel bike camping?
Henrys may be reliable, but I've never been very impressed with their actual cleaning ability or filtering. Best one I've ever had for sheer cleaning power is a Miele upright and that is totally reliable too. I don't particularly like Dyson corded vacs, but their current handheld cordless vacs are hard to beat for spot cleaning. We have a Dyson V8 and I can't really fault it and it's much improved over their earlier models.
The thing is the only really valuable elements for anyone in the EV market in the next few years are going to be new battery and charging technologies, Musk has already acknowledged this himself, it's not so much about the cars it's about flogging charging points, Dyson also knows this.
Personally I think this was a big part of the plan for him, develop some key IP that he can sell to the big auto makers. But actually developing and selling a whole car? Nah I don't think that was the real plan, yeah he's recruited a whole load of engineers and frankly wasted their time, possibly dented but he had to put on a show to access the funding, the government were always going to lap it up, what does it actually cost to develop a whole new vehicle platform? £4-500 million+?
So £15m in deeelopment grants was never going to score the UK the next mini or tesla...
I’m sure his products have been improved over the years, thats a good thing, because the early stuff was crap and I for one fell for it.
Was that the stuff that was manufactured in the UK? Interesting, isn't it?
I had a dyson vacuum cleaner. It broke many times - nothing terminal just bits of plastic breaking off. However you could get spare parts which was good. Eventually it died after sucking up too much building muck
I now have a miele. It doesn't break bits although I did kill it after five years of making it suck of builders dust without proper filters and bought another which I will look after better
So £15m in deeelopment grants was never going to score the UK the next mini or tesla…
their new hairdryer took £50 million to develop :
and £40 million on just the update to the cool fan :
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/06/dyson-silent-fan
So £15m in deeelopment grants was never going to score the UK the next mini or tesla…
No but neither was £2.5bn which he had planned to invest a very measly fraction of what VW have invested who already have the infrastructure.
The thing is the only really valuable elements for anyone in the EV market in the next few years are going to be new battery and charging technologies
Possibly, but there is the "Apple" effect too i.e. bringing it all together into a user friendly, desirable, one-stop product. Something Tesla achieved with their cars and Supercharger infrastructure (which I can say as a user is invaluable), while the mainstream manufacturers were really struggling. Tesla basically made EVs cool and convenient, rather than something you would have to tolerate. They didn't just strap a battery and motor onto a conventional car, they looked at the whole motoring concept in a fresh way. Driving a Tesla is like stepping a full decade into the future in so many different ways beyond the fact that it's an EV. OTA software updates, a user interface that isn't like something out of the 90s, plus loads of other little details that you wouldn't necessarily think about, but then wonder why nobody else thought of them before. Their rivals are still not there yet. Driving an iPace long distance is nowhere near as convenient and the user interface is just too fiddly, slow and cluttered and obviously pandering to legacy owners. Our 10 year old daughter could navigate the Tesla user interface seamlessly in just a few seconds, just like an iPad. Comparing current Tesla satnav and media player to my "modern" Porsche 911 system is a complete joke, so I do hope the Taycan is a lot better.
Investors are pumping the cash into Tesla because they can see their future potential. The “established” manufacturers are still way too invested in ICE tech to seriously flood the market with EVs over the next decade. It would be suicide as they currently depend on ICE sales for about 99% of their income. So for them EV is still more a PR/compliance exercise. Tesla don’t have any of this legacy baggage and that’s why they are so successful in the BEV market. They are still very much in the production ramp up stage with heavy capex on infrastructure, but unit profit margin is actually one of the highest in the industry. Driving a Model X for the last 2 years has been enough to convince me that ICE cars are now dead in the water and that Tesla has a bright future – they simply backed the right horse and fully committed to it. I reckon JLR is far more likely to go under than Tesla in the next decade.
This ^^
If it wasn't for Tesla eating the incumbent OEM's lunches we would still be at least 5 years away from a VW ID3 or Porsche Taycan. Musk realized that the two limiting factors for EV commercialization are charging infrastructure and battery manufacturing capacity so he invested in both.
If I had the money for a Taycan, which is probably a better car than the Model X or Model 3, I'd still buy a Tesla because of the charging infrastructure.
Tesla's drive-train tech is also impressive. BMW took a Tesla apart and were shocked that Tesla were so far ahead of them.
As for Dyson. He hired plenty of senior motor industry pros so investment and production costs can't have come as a surprise. I think he bet the farm on solid state battery tech and it has proven to be way harder to commercialize than he realized.
Mr Dyson was very pro European whilst he benefited from innovation grants and subsidies.
He turned against it when they brought in their new eco ratings for vacuums and they had to be under a certain Kw to be compliant.
He argued his machines should be allowed to be the Kw threshold as they didn’t use bags which offset the pollution caused by the extra power consumption.
This put Dyson cleaners well down the ‘league table’ of energy efficiency and he’s hated them ever since.
He’ll back whichever horse allows him to make the most profit...
^ That is so full of wrong.
Dyson have long since argued for lower power ratings. The argument was that bagged cleaners use more power when they are full of dust and clogged so the tests should reflect that. They have tried to push for them to be rated by suction rather than power input too which makes a lot of sense. Back in the day you'd see cleaners with "2kW motor!" as if was a plus rather than a sign of its inefficiency. Dyson have lead the way with efficient, low power motors and efficient air paths.
As an aside they also won the case on rating labels with EU last time I saw any news on it.
The only way you can possibly get into mainstream automotive manufacturing is if you have a genuine USP
Clive Sinclair did with the C5, but it was still never going to sell.
Tesla are held up as the gold standard of electric cars, but if you sit in one and a Merc of the same value they don't half seem crap in comparison.
And if you say all the value is under the skin, take a look underneath one. The standard of welding, for instance, would not pass muster on the cheapest bike in Halfords.
It's all marketing; distract the punter with the flappy doors and the big tv, and don't let them spot how badly the bootlid fits.
Back in the day you’d see cleaners with “2kW motor!” as if was a plus rather than a sign of its inefficiency.
Well, the EU killed this. We now have cleaners that are far more efficient, and in fact have much stronger suction power, but have lower rated motors. All good. Nothing to do with Dyson.
The argument was that bagged cleaners use more power when they are full of dust and clogged so the tests should reflect that.
But they wanted their cleaners tested “as new” rather than allowing for the tired seals and loose fittings that make a Dyson under perform once no longer in shop condition.
Dyson were great at PR.
That £5million figure is still making me wobble a bit…
…I mean, even if production was going ahead, what would we be getting back?
Tesla are held up as the gold standard of electric cars, but if you sit in one and a Merc of the same value they don’t half seem crap in comparison.
to be fair you could say that about every american built car.
Yeah DannyBgoode that’s the complete opposite of how Dyson worked his early ones bragged about a small motor to do a better job. In part because he got rid of bags funny how many followed and then then damn EU making us use less electricity.
Well, the EU killed this. We now have cleaners that are far more efficient, and in fact have much stronger suction power, but have lower rated motors. All good. Nothing to do with Dyson.
Dyson absolutely did lead on this. You could cynically say it was because they sold cleaners with low power motors (at the time their flagship model had a 750w motor when 1.5kw was the industry standard) but they did initially push the EU to brings these standards in. Efficiency was always important in their cleaner development.
And their claimed efficiency lasted about three months. Awful things. I had two. Why I gave them the benefit of the doubt after the first one, I’ll never know.
Who owns the IP from the £5M investment? After all we know how universities invent new drugs and pharma just hoovers up the profit. Does the same apply for Dyson and electric cars and hairdryers?
Tesla had access to a fully fledged Toyota car factory in Fremont, together with the supply chain. I still don’t think they’ll make it to mainstream (see yahoo), but Dyson would be so much further behind.
to be fair you could say that about every american built car.
Not anymore you can't, much the same as 'German-made' hasn't been a guarantee of quality for a fair while either.
Wait, that's not how it works.
If you made a decision in 2016, you have to stick to it no matter what Mr Dyson
Have to say I think he's a grade A Dick and am more than happy for his car venture to fail.
God knows what a Dyson car would look like anyway, brightly coloured ABS plastic body from which bits regularly broke off. But they'd mail out a new wheel arch or whatever when one fell off, for free, as you'd paid for it at £500k for the basic model.
The best thing about this news is the comments sections of the online news; some very witty digs at Dyson.
I come from a vaguely engineering background. Can anyone tell me how a hairdryer costs £50m to develop?
And how do you make money flogging them at £299?
Not anymore you can’t, much the same as ‘German-made’ hasn’t been a guarantee of quality for a fair while either.
Actually, I agree that every US built car isn't a patch on a Euro built quality motor.
Sat in a couple of directors cars at work, one a Tesla S the other an S-class Merc. Both cost late £90k They were poles apart. The Merc was solid and reassuring, the Tesla had a big tv.
What are the Tuscaloosa built Mercs like? Actually, this all has noting to so with Dyson and his vapourware cars, does it?
Well tbh theres probably more profit and less risk in pushing out fancy hairdryers and vacuums.
Cars are nasty get it wrong and your in a world of pain.
I don’t think you can knock Tesla though they’ve been pushing the autodrive tech full on and actually got a product that you can buy and drive and it’s fairly reasonablish price wise.
I come from a vaguely engineering background. Can anyone tell me how a hairdryer costs £50m to develop?
Either it's just marketing BS or they've employed a load of crap engineers. Equally plausible where Dyson are concerned.
I come from a vaguely engineering background. Can anyone tell me how a hairdryer costs £50m to develop?
And how do you make money flogging them at £299?
Tax R&D credits and he sales an awful lot worldwide.
Sat in a couple of directors cars at work, one a Tesla S the other an S-class Merc. Both cost late £90k They were poles apart. The Merc was solid and reassuring, the Tesla had a big tv.
But did you drive them both or just sit in them? Tesla is all about minimalist design, sublime electric drivetrain and slick functional UI. Merc is more about bling and status. I actually find current Merc interior design hideous, but it's all very subjective.