Dyson has confirmed it is to locate its first electric car factory in Singapore, dashing hopes the UK-based technology company would focus its initial automotive manufacturing operations in its home market. In a development that sparked immediate criticism of company founder James Dyson over his failure to back up his high profile support for Brexit with additional investment in the UK, the FT reported Singapore had been selected over the UK and China as the site for the company’s first electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing plant.
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The National Infrastructure Delivery Plan revealed government funding for Dyson “to develop a new battery electric vehicles… securing £174m of investment in the area and creating over 500 jobs, mostly in engineering”. Even then, Dyson wouldn’t confirm its plans. With the chief executive at the time, Max Conze, only saying that the business was “ruling nothing out”. It was in September last year that Dyson finally confirmed it was working on an electric car. Since then the company has given few details, saying only that it will be a “premium” vehicle with a “radical” design. Sir James, who is estimated to be worth almost £10bn, has put about £2.5bn into the car project and says he has been “pursuing this dream” since 1998. Tuesday’s announcement of a factory in Singapore to produce the cars, which the company says will be launched in 2021, further highlight Dyson’s intent. Combined with the obvious benefits of building on the engineering experience the Dyson built up producing batteries and ground-breaking high-speed electric motors for its vacuums and hand driers, it signals that Sir James wants to be at the forefront of the electric vehicle revolution. But beyond the odd accidental admission and the few scraps Dyson is willing to put into the public domain, next to nothing is known about the company’s plans. But the market where Dyson has chosen to enter also presents problems. Sir James has said his car “won’t be cheap” meaning that it’s going to competing with the we ll-established BMW, Jaguar and Mercedes, all of whom know the premium market inside out and already have their own electric cars on offer. Still, it would be a mistake to simply write off Sir James’s electric car adventure as a rich man’s folly. “It’s repeatedly said that the next 10 years will see more change in the car industry than the past 100 years because of disruptive new technology,” says Mr Bailey. “Those companies that don’t embrace the change are going to get crushed – and Dyson’s certainly a disruptor.”
Telegraph 23rd Oct 2018 read more »
It’s not just an electric car, it’s a power station – that’s the message from Germany where the latest version of Nissan’s Leaf has just been officially approved as a power plant for the German energy market, using vehicle-to-grid technology. Energy supplier Enervie, transmission system operator Amprion, and Nissan worked together to qualify the Leaf for all the German TSO regulatory requirements for primary power regulation. What this mean is electric cars like the Leaf can be used to help stabilise the grid and smooth out power delivery which can be a problem for power companies using renewables with their fluctuating power delivery. The TSO tick means the Leaf can be integrated as a regulating reserve for the German electricity grid. Nissan hails the test success as a breakthrough in the establishment of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology which will shape the way we all generate and receive electricity.
The Driven 24th Oct 2018 read more »