Dyson sets 2020 EV deadline

James Dyson will launch an electric car by 2020.

The billionaire inventor said his company has been working on the project since 2015 and will be ready to launch in 2020, with investment expected to reach £2.5bn.

He said the vehicle would be ‘radically different’ and is being designed, partly in response to his concerns about pollution caused by diesel vehicles.

He said, ‘I’m not a Johnny-come-lately to electric cars. It’s been my ambition since 1998 when I was rejected by the industry that has happily been creating dirty vehicles, and governments have kept on allowing it.’

He added that the UK remained the ‘front-runner’ for production base, but said, ‘We’ll choose the best place to make it and that’s where we’ll make it. Wherever we make the battery, that’s where we will make the car. We see a very large market for this car in the far east. We want to be near where our markets are and I believe the far east has reacted [to electric] more quickly than the UK or Europe.’