Vacuum maker Dyson is building a ‘radically different’ electric car

Dyson, the British company best known for fancy vacuum cleaners and those hand dryers that you have to dip your hands into, has revealed a major new initiative to build a “radically different” electric car. The company has been secretly working on this car since 2015 and already has a team of 400 employees dedicated to developing the prototype vehicle.

“We’re starting from scratch. What we’re doing is quite radical,” founder and CEO James Dyson told The Guardian. Fueled by a hatred for pollution, the inventor has been dreaming of building an electric car since 1998.

The luxury car is slated to launch in 2020, and will compete with luxe car models from Tesla and Volkswagen. A major difference between Dyson’s planned car and others is likely to be its battery technology.

While most existing electric vehicles sport lithium-ion batteries, Dyson plans to design and use smaller and more efficient solid-state car batteries. The company has been building out its battery team for several years, especially with the 2015 acquisition of solid-state-battery company Sakti3.

Via: Bloomberg, The Verge, The Guardian