
Dyson has scrapped its electric car project - hhs
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50004184
======
pavlov
Another British gadget luminary, Sir Clive Sinclair (of early homecomputer
ZX-81 fame) also tried his hand at electric vehicles in the 1980s:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5)

The product line was supposed to grow to include a two-seater C10 and a three-
seater C15, but the C5 flopped so badly that those more car-like models never
got produced.

~~~
aasasd
Specifically, as @m-i-l noted
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20745170](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20745170)):

> _One of the "selling points" of the Sinclair C5 was that its electric motor
> was built by Hoover and would be serviced at the existing network of vacuum
> cleaner service centres_

\----

But generally, microcars are fun. Eshelman upscaled their ‘Child Sport Car’
(i.e. a Barbie Jeep) and made a three-horsepower Adult Sport Car:
[https://i.imgur.com/bXXQIlg.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/bXXQIlg.jpg)

And then they got carried away:
[https://i.imgur.com/EMicATK.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/EMicATK.jpg)
[https://i.imgur.com/0CDiztK.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/0CDiztK.jpg)

Notably though, Eshelman began by making lightweight aircraft but somehow
switched to light garden tractors before the microcars. But my favorite design
of theirs is the Rocket Boat:
[https://i.imgur.com/4pLbmfe.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/4pLbmfe.jpg)

~~~
jacquesm
That rocket boat looks like a swimmer skewer.

~~~
aasasd
Well, I now know what would work splendidly in a B-video for Trve Kvlt Svrf:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=hZAraJrlM5I](https://youtube.com/watch?v=hZAraJrlM5I)

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=VMBznF446Qg](https://youtube.com/watch?v=VMBznF446Qg)

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZIqE_501PZI](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZIqE_501PZI)

------
djaychela
I'm surprised at this - seems bizarre that it's a 'great product' but isn't
commercially viable in any way?

As an aside, I really can't understand why people are so enthusiastic about
Dyson products - I find them to be poor to use and poor performers. My gf has
a dyson vacuum cleaner (a v6, I think), and it's terrible. Battery life is
minimal, the suction is poor compared to anything I've used in the past, all
the novelty parts of it (motorised roller, etc) turned to filthy junk pretty
quickly, and it trashes the bearings for the carpet roller with monotonous
regularity as it can't deal with hair (household with three females with long
hair). Emptying it can only be described as like giving a Wookee a prostate
examination - it's a revolting process that makes mess everywhere and means I
have to scrub my hands afterwards (it doesn't empty like it does in the advert
if you have any hair present in there, which there always is in my case).

I had a V1 dyson back in the day, and it was useless as you couldn't get under
any furniture. Dyson hand dryers in public toilets don't dry your hands in the
claimed 10 seconds, they take about the same time as any other dryer, and
usually lead to wet washroom floors as they blow the water all over the place.

I just don't get it - is it form over function and people go mad for them, but
clearly I'm missing something. I know he employs incredibly clever people, and
no doubt things have been engineered within an inch of their lives, but it
always seems they're optomising variables that I don't care about.

~~~
dtwest
> they take about the same time as any other dryer

This is false. Before the Dyson Airblade and the really loud Xlerator ones,
World Dryer was the most common hand dryer (in America at least), and they are
awful. Forget about 10 seconds, you could stand there for 60 seconds and still
want to use paper towels after.

~~~
ehnto
Xlerators are an auditory health hazard. You can hear them running outside the
gym before you can hear the music blaring.

~~~
redwall_hp
All hand dryers are a health hazard. They're a wet, warm, bacteria incubator
that can then aerosolize the bacteria.

In contrast, the mechanical action of drying your hands with a paper towel is
an additional antibacterial step.

~~~
dpark
Why do you imagine that normal hands dryers are wet? The original Dyson
airblades? Sure. Those are gross. Normal air dryers don’t have anywhere to
store water, and if somehow you got water inside, it would rapidly dry itself
out from normal use.

~~~
officialjunk
[https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-
of-...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-
air-hand-dryer-2018051113823)

~~~
dpark
I had to read all of 4 sentences to see that this does not say that air dryers
are growing bacteria. In fact it says the opposite, that there was very little
bacteria in the nozzles. There is bacteria in the air and the dryers are
sucking it in and pushing it onto hands being dried.

------
numbers
I have 4 Dyson products, besides the hair-dryer, all of the others are bad
(can't say they suck b/c that's the main job of 2 of the vacuums and they
can't get it done).

I bought the dyson air purifier that's cold and hot, it's so bad...works at
the same level as a USB fan...

The vacuums are loud and look futuristic but can't clean anything properly.

Any recommendations for a good vacuum are welcome!

~~~
bvm
(not sure where you're based but...) a Henry!
[https://www.numatic.co.uk/products.aspx?r=4&sr=1](https://www.numatic.co.uk/products.aspx?r=4&sr=1)
They're cheap, they're reliable, you can use them bagged or bagless, they're
basically indestructible (our chimney sweep uses a bog standard one for the
actual sweeping), if anything does break you can easily repair them, they are
really very good at vacuuming. Excellent product, would buy again, if I ever
had to.

~~~
gwbas1c
In the US we call those shop vacs.

They're a little harder to move around, that's why most people only use them
for heavy-duty cleaning.

(And yes, I clean my fireplace with one.)

------
olivermarks
Burnt through all the government grant money presumably

[https://www.ft.com/content/ad078d22-f127-11e5-9f20-c3a047354...](https://www.ft.com/content/ad078d22-f127-11e5-9f20-c3a047354386)

[https://www.ft.com/content/6c904cd0-eb90-11e5-bb79-230368234...](https://www.ft.com/content/6c904cd0-eb90-11e5-bb79-2303682345c8)

~~~
DesiLurker
paywalled

------
mdorazio
Add Dyson to the list of failed/failing EV entrants (Faraday, Lucid, Elio,
Aptera, ...) finding out the hard way that building a commercially viable car
is _hard_ regardless of what its powertrain looks like.

~~~
andy_ppp
Building a commercially competitive production line is the problem no?
Designing of the electric car is trivial I'd say compared to the (programming
and usage of) robots and (training and hiring of) humans required to actually
assemble the thing.

~~~
jcims
You don't design the car, you design the process to manufacture the car. The
desired properties of the car itself just provides some constraints on the
manufacturing process.

------
hwbehrens
I'm pretty surprised to find that Dyson even _had_ an electric car project.
The business similarity between vacuums and vehicles seems pretty low to me.
Is it just the electric motors and Li-ion batteries?

~~~
_delirium
From their pre-cancellation PR, that seems to have been exactly the bet, that
their existing expertise in electric motors and batteries would carry over as
a competitive advantage.

~~~
asdfman123
I mean, that feels like saying because I can cook dinner for myself I should
create a food distribution company.

------
the-dude
"The Dyson automotive team has developed a fantastic car; ..."

Has one ever been spotted in the wild? Or even at an orchestrated photo event?

I could not find any.

------
mattlondon
Quite saddened to see this - I was hoping that Dyson might bring some
interesting competition to the market. If they really did have something
unique to bring in terms of motors and battery tech, I hope that gets licensed
out/sold to the rest of the market.

More competition in the EV market is good - it is pleasing to see slightly
more "normally priced" EVs coming to the market now rather than selling them
as a premium luxury product. Perhaps Dyson was aiming for that premium pricing
point (kinda how they do with their appliances), but have changed their mind
now that you can get a ~150 mile range (163 WLTP) EV for £22,000 now (e.g.
[https://mg.co.uk/mg-zs-electric/](https://mg.co.uk/mg-zs-electric/)). Would
people be prepared to pay mega-prices for what people would inevitably call a
glorified vacuum cleaner?

------
xivzgrev
Why do companies keep thinking they can build a fucking car? Yes Tesla did it
but it was a company 100% dedicated to it. Dyson has a core business already.

I’m also skeptical about Apple but at least they have one of the largest
treasure chests in the world of cash so they can more afford a moon shot.

~~~
Frodo478
You know what are the main elements of an electric car? Battery and electric
motor. Dyson uses them in every product. So it's in the business more that you
think. And another great skill of dyson is the design. And the CEO is one of
the most famous in the world. So battery, motor and design makes a good
electric car. At least in theory...

~~~
la_oveja
Not even close. A car is way much more than a motor and 4 wheels, specially in
2019. You need suspension, aerodynamics, an infotaiment system, seats, air
conditioning, doors (dont understimate this one), a music playback system, a
good display for the driver... And this in a cabin that can confort people
from temperatures and noise from the outside. Making a decent car in
incredibly difficult. + Safety features required for the current standards.

------
fooblitzky
Seeing the explosion in e-bike popularity, maybe they should have focused on
those instead. In addition to being a smaller, cheaper product with higher
margins, you have a much larger market to sell to (not many countries have
roads like the USA, or the electricity generation, and something like only the
top 30 countries have people that can even afford to buy a car).

------
rasz
/. comment
[https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14984762&cid=59293...](https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14984762&cid=59293386)
speculates Dyson Car was a scam intended to get outside investor to pay for
their Singapore manufacturing infrastructure.

------
dmix
I don't understand why any of them would build an entire car instead of
starting with a core part of the car better than anyone else, then expand into
the other areas eventually.

Same with self-driving AI companies. Release a better-than-Tesla and better-
than-human highway driving lane assist system first then move on to the harder
problems.

------
jordache
Shocked!

This is akin to if a bicycle company tried to build cars, thinking their
engineers can simply shift from bicycles to cars...

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot)

~~~
kube-system
I'm not sure if that refutes or supports the above point... :D

------
benj111
I'm trying to square this with the rise of the money no object car. Is there
really not 1000? People will to spend £2m for this when Bugatti seems to have
no problems doing the same.

------
fluxem
I'm pretty sure if they ever made electric car, it would run on gas, just like
"fanless" fan.

------
jonplackett
Unsurprising. Dyson can barely make vacuum cleaners anymore.

I remember a while back they tried to make a washing machine, totally over
engineered it with a drum spinning both ways at once so it would finish the
cycle quicker. The downside? It was 6 inches or so deeper than other machines
and stuck right out into your kitchen. No thanks.

------
robd003
You just know there's a joke about making the entire car out of plastic in
here...

------
m3kw9
Prob cost them 200billion in estimate

------
pkphilip
This sucks!

------
m23khan
deleted.

