An engineer, proven innovator, transforming existing products and now he has electric cars in his sights. Sir James Dyson already has taken a bet on solid state batteries so cars seem a natural step.
Tesla is finding the logistics of manufacturing a challenge and faces incumbent auto manufacturers are transforming petrol/diesel production lines to electric and autonomous driving manufacturing.
Will Dyson come a cropper against these competitors?
Intriguingly the FT article points to four factors that could beat Tesla and incumbents.
- Plastic makes the cars lighter — important because of the weight of electric batteries
- Plastic allows for more inventive designs.
- The first car would look “quite different” to any currently on the market.
- Dyson's Solid State Battery innovation
Dyson has beaten industry heavyweights before and cold do so again.
But ditching solid state in the first model would give Dyson a better chance of hitting its target of getting the vehicle to market by 2021, says Mr Houchois at Jefferies. “They want to control the variables. What they don’t want to be is a Tesla that over-promises and then delivers two to three years late.” Sir James told the FT the company has been “investing heavily in new battery technology, solid state battery technology . . . but those sorts of technologies can take some time to get there.” But the entrepreneur declined to gi
https://www.ft.com/content/564aa742-0cac-11e8-8eb7-42f857ea9f09