Photo: Dyson via The Times
When someone says Dyson in the United Kingdom, you immediately think about a hand dryer or a vacuum cleaner, even though the latter category is better known as a Hoover.
A few years ago, these peeps have indirectly suggested that they’re going after Tesla with the Dyson electric vehicle, a “radically different” EV according to an e-mail from 2017 from James Dyson. Fast-forward to February 2018, and that’s when two more EVs were confirmed, bringing the total to three.
Now we’re figuratively traveling to October 2019, and Dyson said the 600-strong team in charge of electromobility came up with “a fantastic electric car.” Also then, Dyson made it clear the project is axed because it wasn’t as commercially viable as the British company initially expected it to be three years ago.
In an interview with The Times, Sir James Dyson has finally taken the veils off the stillborn EV. He has also confirmed the codenamed N526, seating for up to seven people, and an all-aluminum construction. Despite the lightweight material, the car reportedly weighs 2.6 tonnes in series-production flavor.
That’s 5,732 pounds or 300 more than the 2020 Tesla Model X. Dyson also told The Times that top speed was theoretically rated at 125 miles per hour (201 kph) and zero to 62 mph (100 kph) needed only 4.8 seconds.
But the headline, however, is driving range. 600 miles (966 kilometers) is more than any other series-production EV on sale at the time of writing, a seriously optimistic number given that the battery specs haven’t been made public. For reference, the 2020 Tesla Model S is EPA-rated 391 miles (629 kilometers).
Sir James Dyson said that he had driven a prototype of the N526, a “sporty-looking SUV” that needed to bring it “at least £150,000” for the British company to break even. That implies no profit on every sale, hence the project’s cancellation. Still, how did they come up with that driving range?
The answer to that brings us to solid-state batteries, an area of EV technology that’s seriously hot these days. Samsung is currently working on an all-solid-state battery that theoretically promises 500 miles (805 kilometers).
All told, Dyson blew approximately 500 million pounds sterling on the project. That's $603,882,500 at current exchange rates, less than half the money that Tesla spent last year on research and development (1,343 billion U.S. dollars).
Now we’re figuratively traveling to October 2019, and Dyson said the 600-strong team in charge of electromobility came up with “a fantastic electric car.” Also then, Dyson made it clear the project is axed because it wasn’t as commercially viable as the British company initially expected it to be three years ago.
In an interview with The Times, Sir James Dyson has finally taken the veils off the stillborn EV. He has also confirmed the codenamed N526, seating for up to seven people, and an all-aluminum construction. Despite the lightweight material, the car reportedly weighs 2.6 tonnes in series-production flavor.
That’s 5,732 pounds or 300 more than the 2020 Tesla Model X. Dyson also told The Times that top speed was theoretically rated at 125 miles per hour (201 kph) and zero to 62 mph (100 kph) needed only 4.8 seconds.
But the headline, however, is driving range. 600 miles (966 kilometers) is more than any other series-production EV on sale at the time of writing, a seriously optimistic number given that the battery specs haven’t been made public. For reference, the 2020 Tesla Model S is EPA-rated 391 miles (629 kilometers).
Sir James Dyson said that he had driven a prototype of the N526, a “sporty-looking SUV” that needed to bring it “at least £150,000” for the British company to break even. That implies no profit on every sale, hence the project’s cancellation. Still, how did they come up with that driving range?
The answer to that brings us to solid-state batteries, an area of EV technology that’s seriously hot these days. Samsung is currently working on an all-solid-state battery that theoretically promises 500 miles (805 kilometers).
All told, Dyson blew approximately 500 million pounds sterling on the project. That's $603,882,500 at current exchange rates, less than half the money that Tesla spent last year on research and development (1,343 billion U.S. dollars).
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