Vacuum Company Dyson To Build 'Radically Different' Electric Car (theguardian.com) 177
British inventor Sir James Dyson has announced plans to build an electric car that will be "radically different" from current models and go on sale in 2020. The Guardian reports: The billionaire who revolutionized the vacuum cleaner said 400 engineers in Wiltshire had been working since 2015 on the 2.5 billion British pound project. No prototype has yet been built, but Dyson said the car's electric motor was ready, while two different battery types were under development that he claimed were already more efficient than in existing electric cars. Dyson said consumers would have to "wait and see" what the car would look like: "We don't have an existing chassis [...] We're starting from scratch. What we're doing is quite radical." However, he said the design was "all about the technology" and warned that it would be an expensive vehicle to purchase. While he did not name a price, he said: "Maybe the better figure is how much of a deposit they would be prepared to put down."
I bet it's going to... (Score:3, Funny)
totally suck!
Re: I bet it's going to... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm going to go against the grain by saying I was extremely impressed with their engineering prowess.
I watched a YouTube video where a mechanical engineer disassembled one of their motors and used an oscilloscope to show how they got so much power out of a tiny little moter.
I'm not joking it was actually very impressive, the way the power ramped up using a digital function was amazing. It wasn't like they just used a bigger motor and applied simple power to it. The motor was receiving so much power that it would actually be destroyed if the power wasn't ocellated in that exact way.
So if anything I think they're major innovation is going to be the motor in the vehicle. I'm not so interested in the rest of their packaging but I will always acknowledge and impressive engineering talent whenever I see it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That may be "revolutionary" for small electronics, but waveform sculpting with IGBTs is standard for EV motors. Except with vastly higher powers. Nobody's using brushed PM motors for EVs, unless you're talking about something equivalent to a golf cart. And it's been that way since the EV1 days.
If you want to see the direction Tesla is headed nowadays, for example, here's an interview [chargedevs.com] with their motor guy.
Re: I bet it's going to... (Score:3)
...unless you're talking about something equivalent to a golf cart.
All but the crappiest RC vehicles have even gone brushless.
Re: I bet it's going to... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not joking it was actually very impressive, the way the power ramped up using a digital function was amazing.
Dyson has a long history of taken existing and well known concepts and putting them in a different box. These examples are just the latest. Their vacuum is nothing more than taking Dyson's own off the shelf shop vac, and then trial and erroring his way to make it smaller because he didn't understand the calculations developed 40 years earlier. The jet drier... Just a Mitsubishi version that looks a bit better. The air multiplier fan? Toshiba's patent with a slightly smaller motor (20 years after Toshiba stopped making them) so it doesn't have as big a base. Their hair drier? All looks with the airmultiplier concept. 10x the price of a traditional one, same airflow, same heating, but much heavier.
Waveform sculpting for efficient motor driving is second year university level stuff, and any idiot can show you cool pictures on an oscilloscope. What it does result in is fantastically small motor designs that are almost impossible to repair, which is one of the reason why waveform sculpting has never left the "it needs to be as small as possible" realm and moved into wider industry.
Re: I bet it's going to... (Score:5, Informative)
I agreed with you up until the last line. Essentially all modern EVs use waveform sculpting.
Re: (Score:3)
I agreed with you up until the last line. Essentially all modern EVs use waveform sculpting.
Isn't that what I said? It's used where weight and efficiency is critical (e.g. EVs).
By wider industry I meant actual industry, where pumps will run continuously for 8 years at a time and any fault needs to be repairable in a matter of hours. In those cases size and efficiency never trump repairability or easy maintenance.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
No you didn't say that. You said "small as possible."
Indeed. The wonderful thing about metal is that size and weight are typically proportional.
Re: I bet it's going to... (Score:2)
Isn't that what I said?
which is one of the reason why waveform sculpting has never left the "it needs to be as small as possible" realm and moved into wider industry.
No, Ten-Second Tom; it isn't.
Re: I bet it's going to... (Score:5, Funny)
Are you quoting me quoting you quoting me in the wrong order while correcting me all at once? Daaaayyyyyyymn.
Re: (Score:2)
Was this video created/sponsored by Dyson?
I am not doubting the company does some good engineering. But they are also good at the sales pitch. Much like Apple.
When they state a band new approach, they may just mean an incremental improvement solving some inefficiency in the process. The electric motor for automotive use is still a new process and I bet things can be approved.
Re: (Score:2)
"When they state a band new approach, they may just mean an incremental improvement solving some inefficiency in the process. "
I'd argue that all they're doing is good marketing with crap inside of pretty packaging. They've become trendy, and high priced because people want to show off their fancy expensive Dyson. Not because their products are better...at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Not because their products are better...at all.
Disagree. I have DC59, going on 8 years now. After buying a new lower priced vacuum every other year, I'd argue that they do build a decent product. Is it perfect? No, but it's held up.
They've become trendy, and high priced because people want to show off their fancy expensive Dyson.
Really? Do people really show off their vacuums? Can't say I ever have.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
We still use the Electrolux canister vacuum
Now you're talking a completely different level of vacuum. Not really fair to compare a $400 piece of equipment to something that likely cost $1200+ in today's dollars.
Re: (Score:2)
Why not? You're comparing a $400 Dyson to something that is lower priced in your original post...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Was this video created/sponsored by Dyson?
No. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] This guy doesn't do "sponsored" videos. You should check out his channel, dude's funny as hell and is pretty smart.
Re: (Score:2)
The motor was receiving so much power that it would actually be destroyed if the power wasn't ocellated in that exact way.
I can imagine the sales pitch now.
The Dysonette, the only electric car that comes with its own built-in self-destruction mechanism.
Re: (Score:2)
What innovation though... Motors already have more than enough power, the car has to use traction control to keep the wheels from spinning even in an original Nissan Leaf, let alone a Tesla.
Where innovation is needed is cost and efficiency. Dyson motors are not cheap, they need precision manufacturing and expensive machined parts to work. I don't know how well they do on efficiency, their battery powered vacuum cleaners don't seem to be particularly exceptional in terms of battery life.
I guess they could ge
Re: (Score:2)
Motors already have more than enough power,
Not sure they do. If you get the power density up high enough, you can switch to having wheel motors instead of a single traction motor, and eliminate the transmission entirely.
Re: (Score:2)
That's true. Maybe that's their great innovation... But how much difference will it actually make? I mean, it wouldn't make the car affordable. It might increase the range a bit by eliminating transmission losses and reducing weight, but not massively.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You don't want to do wheel motors. You want as little unsprung mass on the wheels as you can get away with, unless you are only driving on a perfectly flat -- no potholes, no rumble strips, no expansion joints, no cracks, no ruts, no washboard -- road surface.
Re: (Score:3)
This are old concepts.
We did that in the 1980s already.
The problem is: right now the whole car is made from off the shelf parts. Breaking assistance, electronic stabilizing, anti blocking system etc.
If you switch to wheel motors, you have to rework all of that to work together with the wheel motors.
But yes, if we would do that we probably lose a few hundred kg of weight from an EV.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm betting it's going to clean up at the track.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm betting it's going to clean up at the track.
Rides on a giant ball instead of four wheels.
Re: I bet it's going to... (Score:2)
"The first Dyson product that doesn't suck or blow (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: "The first Dyson product that doesn't suck or (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When another famous British Inventor, Sir Clive Sinclair, invented an electric vehicle he came up with this [wikipedia.org].
I'll wait for this one sitting down and I'll probably need to steady myself so I won't fall off my chair once it does get released.
Re: (Score:3)
It would have sold great on the west coast USA.
Actually, in Oregon a tricycle electronically limited to 15mph counts as a bicycle and can drive anywhere. Washington is probably the same.
I'd rather have that than his computer; actually I had two of them as a kid, both Timex/Sinclair 1000 models. I bought them at a yard sale from a graduating college student. It only had 2k of RAM, and booted to a BASIC editor. When the RAM filled up, it just froze. Oops, you wrote to much code. Start over.
In theory you could
Re: (Score:2)
Sinclair made some great computers if you consider the timeframe. The later Sinclair Spectrum was a huge success, didn't really go far in US market but in other places it was a success. No special drive required, you could just hook up any cassette player. A few years later you could use a disk drive if you had one instead.
Re: (Score:2)
I've got nothing but great memories of Sinclair ZX Spectrum... compared to what you were using, this was a beast. 48K of memory, works with any cassette player, built-in audio... :)
And, best of all, those rubber keys will BASIC words built-in, so you don't even need a book to figure out what all is available to do. I learned programming by trying every "command" to see what it does. :)
Re: (Score:2)
When another famous British Inventor, Sir Clive Sinclair, invented an electric vehicle he came up with this [wikipedia.org].
I'll wait for this one sitting down and I'll probably need to steady myself so I won't fall off my chair once it does get released.
Sold to the wrong market at the wrong time. Terribly suited to Britain's damp climate- but for a nice electric assist bike-car hybrid for the price of a premium bicycle- it was an idea outside it's time. Considering how bad battery tech was in the 80's it was a decent product. Just marketed to the wrong people, in the wrong place. A C5 developed today with today's technology and environmental sensibilities would probably be a hit in many places.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks to the OP, we have now reached a Nash equilibrium in this story.
Who cares. (Score:5, Funny)
Where the hell is my sphere, Dyson?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Woosh!
Sunk Costs (Score:3)
After investing 2.5 billion GBP already, I sure hope it doesn't suck. The expectation to deliver must be hanging over James Dyson's head like a bowling ball.
Re:Sunk Costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Half of that was just in battery tech. New battery tech can easily repay 2.5bn even if the car never gets manufactured.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you sure he cares? There was a time when the visionaries who were willing to spend their life savings to change the world came from the United States.
Lately, it looks more and more like America is becoming a nation of bean-counters, ignorant hillbillies and risk-averse security addicts.
And that's not good for anybody.
Re: (Score:2)
they inherited some know-how from the British car industry
You mean like Range Rover or Lotus? *chuckles*
Anyways those are respectively Indian and Chinese manufacturers nowadays.
Re: (Score:3)
You mean like Range Rover or Lotus? *chuckles*
Anyways those are respectively Indian and Chinese manufacturers nowadays.
Range Rover is a well established luxury brand world over... sure, I personally wouldn't want one because of their reliability issues. Lotus is a very well established racing marque.
You're also missing Rolls Royce, Vauxhall (sure nothing but rebadged Opals now), Aston Martin, etc. The world's most prominent professional racing teams are disproportionately headquartered in the UK, only a few outside the UK actually. Lots of non British companies have their engine development programs headquartered in the
Re: (Score:2)
That's a bit like saying that Chrysler is Italian because they're owned by Fiat. Or, German when Mercedes owned them previously. It's much more about where they're designed and produced rather than ownership.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Dyson the Apple of vacuum cleaners. Most of their money is spent on creating an image and not on making vacuum cleaners. In terms of marketing, there are sound logical reason why Dyson should not make cars under that brand, it will be forever tainted with, "it sucks", no matter how much they spend, it will simply be crippled in branding terms.
The big problem for Dyson, Tesla and not Tesla itself but the prod on Tesla has created in the rest of the automotive market. Dyson will not be competing against Tesla
Re: (Score:2)
Dyson the Apple of vacuum cleaners. Most of their money is spent on creating an image and not on making vacuum cleaners.
Spot on.
Case in point: I bought a disposable Walmart chinese vacuum cleaner for the cottage and somehow it got swapped with the $500 dyson clunker that I bought for home. I don't remember how much was the Walmart one but it was cheap enough that I didn't buy extra bags.
Re: (Score:2)
On logic and reason, there's an argument that everything evolves by trial and error and that innovations cannot be predicted, or at least, you can try to predict on paper, but in reality there are many factors, many accidental and sporadic circumstances, which lead to the unexpected. There's an argument that this blind chaotic process is actually how innovation happens. People tend to look for a simple rational set of reasons. But that may be confirmation bias, simply taking factors which are obviously nece
Re: (Score:2)
"In reality, all successful innovation depends on blind luck."
The inventor of the light bulb begs to differ... "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."
How many filaments did he try before he got one that worked? Was that blind luck?... possibly, if you think he didn't believe he would find one.
Re: Sunk Costs (Score:2)
While I agree that Dyson's politics regarding Brexit are pretty bloody stupid, I think it's important to point out that he in fact opposes the government's desire to expel foreign students upon graduation.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk... [theguardian.com]
Re: (Score:2)
So the quality of the product is connected to the political leaning of the owner.
I would like to see some numbers on that hypothesis.
if they can make a self driving car that Chicago (Score:2)
if they can make a self driving car that can work year round in the Chicago area then may have something big.
Cost (Score:5, Funny)
Considering the Dyson hairdryer costs $400, and a Dyson table fan costs $300, I predict the Dyson Car will cost $5 million dollars.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh it gets better. The Dyson hairdryer is identical to a cheap $30 one in every metric, except for cost and ... weight. So now your wife can get a sore arm while she looks good with her expensive toy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So exactly what I said. Over-engineering leads to two things: Cost and use of built-like-a-brick-shithouse materials (weight).
There is literally nothing appealing about it other than looks. A cheap plastic $30 jobby will last you 10 years easy. There's nothing to be gained by Dyson's engineering here.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Another expensive electric vehicle that will probably bring little to the table other than maybe a Dyson motor that makes it do 0-60 in 0.1 seconds less than a Tesla.
To be interesting it needs to be one of the following:
- Cheap
- Extremely long range
- Fully self driving
- Fully self (vacuum) cleaning
Dyson vacuum cleaners are good, but they have a nasty habit of releasing them with severe design flaws and then releasing an updated model the next year that fixes it.
Re: (Score:2)
Am I the only one who thinks Dyson is the 'Apple' of home appliances
Dyson doesn't know your fetishes, diseases, or how many squares of toilet paper you use per wipe. Other than that, pretty close.
Skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish him success. It'd be wonderful to have a new Tesla-like operation running (in the sense of a new purely-electric vehicle company). But the smart money is on this project utterly failing. There is a huge amount of technical and marketing expertise involved in designing something as complex as a car. If he's coming into this without involving a lot of people really experienced with all aspects of car development, the chances are really good that the project will be doomed to failure. Plus there's the whole manufacturing problem to tackle. Bringing a new car assembly line into production would be monumental, and even contracting with an existing manufacturer for this purpose would be extremely challenging (especially if the differences from existing car designs are substantial, as Dyson apparently wants to achieve).
And if the car is too different from existing designs, he's going to have a hell of a time convincing people to buy it.
Lots of companies have a good shot (Score:2)
Steve Balmer said essentially the same thing about Apple and cell phones... there's no reason why a new entrant cannot hit a car out the park. There are zillions or car tinkerers in the world that understand cars incredibly well, so it's not like there's not a lot of available expertise with cars nor are car issues not incredibly well understood already. Car evolution has been incredibly slow to date, the market is absolutely ripe for ANYONE with some nice technical improvements to steal a ton of marketsh
Re: (Score:2)
google his recent hires - lots of experience across fields, even including ex Tesla staff.
Smart people surround themselves with the knowledgeable people they need and then just pull them all together.
Common, it's Dyson. (Score:3)
But the smart money is on this project utterly failing. There is a huge amount of technical and marketing expertise involved in designing something as complex as a car. If he's coming into this without involving a lot of people really experienced with all aspects of car development, the chances are really good that the project will be doomed to failure.
Common, it's Dyson that we're talking about.
The guy who takes the concept of "over-engineering", laugh at it and then turn the level up to 11.
The guy who cannot comprehend the concept of over-spending. (And that's both during design AND the price the customers are then expected to pay for)
The guy who utterly fails to understand why there is even a "budget" category, or what are the main points attracting customers to current tech.
We all know how this will end. (Just look at his fans and vacuum cleaners for
Re: (Score:3)
He's made it clear he's not going for the "cheap box" market. He's going for the high-end supercar market. The question is, who would buy a high-end supercar from Dyson?
Perhaps if he blows away the Tesla P100D (or whatever's current in their lineup at that time) on straightline acceleration, he'll get an obligatory number of sales from that chunk of the superrich that have to have all of the fastest toys. That's about the only hope I see for him.
That's exactly Dyson's market (Score:2)
Perhaps if he blows away the Tesla P100D (or whatever's current in their lineup at that time) on straightline acceleration, he'll get an obligatory number of sales from that chunk of the superrich that have to have all of the fastest toys.
And given how Dyson markets its over expensive and well-fucking-over-engineered fans, vacuum cleaners, hairdryers and vacuuming robots, that clealy seems to be the only market strategy on which Dyson focuses.
And given their pricing tendency, you can expect the cars to cost in the million price range. And thus selling the small number of cars you mentioned will be enough to cover their cost.
The rest of the planet can safely ignore their circus.
Market speak. (Score:2)
I just want someone to explain to me what the hell a digital motor is that they advertise all the time when I still see spinning analog motors in their vacuums.
It's market-speak buzzwords for "IC-driven AC motor".
They are all AC motor
- you got a spinning rotor in the middle, whose magnetic field can be static (e.g.: even a rare earth permanent magnet can do it).
- you got a stator on the outside that uses electro magnets.
You need to feed AC current to the stator, so the magnetic polarity of the electro magnet will change overtime, which will cause the rotor to turn.
In classical AC motors (market speak "analog") :
- you simply feed an AC current into the electro magn
Re: (Score:2)
Dyson has been recruiting for a couple of years. It was obvious they were building a car from the job spec. I thought about applying but it was in an expensive, unattractive area and the wages were low. They certainly are not hiring experienced, highly skilled engineers, at least not publicly. Maybe they wanted someone to write firmware for the electric seats or something.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like his "most hygienic hand dryers" that turn out due to the high speed air used to actually be the most *UN*hygienic hand dryers as they blast the germs of your hands and circulate them around the room. A huge backwards step in public health from a Brexiter bastard who actually could not give a shit about joe public.
already more efficient (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I was playing with motors for a solar car project in college
I don't know why they do that instead of battle bots. A solar car race will get you 34 views on Youtube; a demolition derby of robots with flamethrowers and chainsaws will get you a sold-out event at the stadium, with a mile-long lineup, and scalpers, and ice cream vendors, and tailgate parties.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would anyone buy Dyson made car? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
...You know that company's track record. Even when their prior products worked as designed and advertised, they sucked....
imo, Dyson shows the ultimate power of marketing. It doesn't necessarily have to work better, you just have to convince consumers willing to pay a lot more to think it works better. Marketing at work.
The roads will be a lot cleaner (Score:5, Funny)
The roads will be a lot cleaner after one of these goes by. The one I'm waiting for is the Roomba car - self driving and learns the way to your destination by bumping into things along the way.
How many prototypes (Score:2, Interesting)
It took Dyson 15 years and 5000+ prototypes [gizmodo.com] to get a vacuum right. Yes, a vacuum.
I can only wonder how many tries it's going to take them to get right something as complex as a car.
anyone care to bet... (Score:2)
how ugly it will be? For some wierd reason, the designers of all these "radically new tech" vehicles seem to feel a burning need to make it a special kind of fugly.
Re:anyone care to bet... (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't mix up "bucking traditional style trends in order to be deliberately unusual" (for example, Prius Prime) with "bucking traditional style trends because it matters for aerodynamics" (such as aero wheels, grilleless designs, greater rear taper, shallower windshield rake, etc). The former is for people who want to shout to other drivers, "HEY, I'M DRIVING A GREEN CAR!!!", while the latter is simply physics and economics - lower energy consumption means smaller battery packs / less weight / less cost (or instead, longer range), fewer cycles at lower DoD on the packs, less cost to charge, faster charging from a given power source, etc, etc. It basically gives you a better, cheaper car.
Style trends change. Sometimes manufacturers buck style trends to stand out - with the Prius Prime, for example, there's nothing about having your rear end look like it was stepped on by a giant [automobilemag.com] that helps your efficiency. But more often, they do so because it offers serious potential benefits. The latter slowly tends to become mainstream over time. "Back in the day", cars that didn't look like carriages were seen as weird. Raked, windshields (let alone curved ones)? Headlights -embedded- in the hood? A curved hood? Any taper whatsoever? Bumpers? On and on the list goes - all used to be seen as "fugly". As weirdmobiles. But they won out because they offered very real advantages, and people's style expectations changed accordingly as that's what they got used to seeing.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the lecture. What made you think I don't already know all of that?
New fuel cell technology (Score:2)
Dyson is only seeing half of the picture (Score:2)
While I'd certainly agree that technology (or the lack of it) plays an important part in the slowness to accept electric vehicles, but if you market it at a price that is outside of the reach of the mass consumer, you can't exactly hope for large scale appeal either.
Wished Ballard didn't give up on their gas-turbine (Score:2)
I wished Ballard didn't give up on their gas-turbine electric car.
They just kind of... gave up. At the time there was no real excuse, just a statement that said something to the effect of "Umm, nevermind, we're dropping everything and moving all research to fuel cells."
Problem is, fuel cells are just glorified batteries. The gas-turbine directly converted fuel to energy without that huge conversion step in the middle.
Re: (Score:2)
A gas turbine has a big flaw: it's only efficient when running at full power, and a huge fuel hog at lower power settings. So you'd need to install a turbine AND a battery pack, and run the turbine intermittently.
In the mean time, batteries got good enough that you can skip the onboard generator entirely and just install a big battery, saving lots of money on complicated mechanical parts.
Re: (Score:2)
Turbines also tend to be noisy, and finicky, and have long spool-up times. It was worth giving them a shot, but they never really panned out, either for direct drive or as range extenders.
Re: (Score:2)
But turbines find funny usages in niche markets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
There is another video (which I did not find right now) where you see how that plane is fired up.
Re: (Score:2)
it's only efficient when running at full power, and a huge fuel hog at lower power settings.
That is nonsense.
As soon as you are in the mid range it is already quite efficient (considering the maximum): http://www.dg.history.vt.edu/c... [vt.edu]
Re: (Score:2)
The link you gave has no information on efficiency vs. rpm, just peak efficiency.
Re: (Score:2)
Radically different (Score:2)
Given that Dyson typically sells vacuum cleaners and hairdryers I'm not especially convinced they have the resources to produce any kind of electric vehicle unless it is powered by washing machine motors, a la the Sinclair C5. In which case, good luck with that.
HAHAHA! (Score:2)
Drawbacks might not be worth it (Score:2)
Unfortunately, to go from point A to point B, the car will follow a zig-zag pattern to cover a lot of area in between, and you'll have to empty your trunk after each trip.
Dyson Vehicle (Score:2)
Sure there's a market for street sweepers!
Re: (Score:2)
other companies have no interest in their tech because it has to interoperate with the rest of the other companies' systems and meet pre-established benchmarks.
But you just go to a contract automaker, which may actually be what they are going to do (who knows), rather than actually building a car yourself. Unless, of course, you are building a vehicle so radically different from what has come before that nobody else has any expertise that would be helpful in building it, anyway. It's difficult to imagine that, however. At minimum, the wheels, tires, and suspension components in general will be similar to other vehicles, and they will probably be attached to a subf
Re: (Score:2)
The first car to have wheels that have no tires?
Oh. A hovercar.
Re: (Score:2)
Model 3 is supposed to have a tow hitch option, according to Musk. PTFI took a picture of the underside of his and there's a cover over what's presumed to be a tow hitch connector, but he hasn't bothered to take it off and check ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Being that my average vacuum had lasted me less than 3 years. And the Dyson is still working does say something. And I think I only paid $300 for it (they have different models you know)