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?
In Dyson's case they also have a fair amount of consumer focused industrial design and marketing chops and brand recognition.
But yes, batteries and motors get you a long way toward producing an electric car. At first approximation, EVs are batteries, motors, and motor speed control systems, essentially huge equivalents of electric RC cars that many played with as children.
I suspect that VW's big push into mass market electric vehicles (the ID3) probably made them reconsider, especially given VW's production scale in the mass market segment. Consider the heroics Tesla has had to undertake to ramp to the scale they are at. My guess is that they are the last "new" car maker who will make it through the finish line.
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.
