Household Appliances And Cars From The Same Maker?
Don’t worry – Dyson’s proposed EV probably won’t look like this.
I heard the other day that a household appliance manufacturer is going to have a go at the electric car game. Although my first reaction (and possibly yours) was to snigger, I then realised that it’s possibly not all that loopy after all. For one thing, it’s not the first time that a company has had a go at making household gadgets and motor cars: Toyota makes sewing machines as well as their very popular cars and they’re not bad (the cars or the sewing machines – and I can vouch for the sewing machines, as I’ve got one). Peugeot also started out making coffee grinders, umbrellas and crinolines.
For another thing, the makers of household appliances are already used to working with electric motors for – well, just about anything. Household appliances just about all run on electricity and a lot of them use electrical motors – so why not scale up from teeny electric motors in electric shavers to motorcars? We’re used to other things that can run on either electricity or internal combustion engines, such as lawnmowers, so it might be just a matter of scale.
The household appliance manufacturer in question is Dyson, who also makes vacuum cleaners. Cue jokes about “My car sucks.” At the moment, they’ve managed to get a nice big factory space and the plan is to put a car out by 2020. Or 2021, depending on which press release you get your hands on. Details are still being kept secret but here’s what we know so far:
- They’re going to convert a bunch of old World War 2 era aircraft hangars in the UK to use as factories.
- They’re doing the research and development in Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia as well as the UK.
- One of the former hangars has at least 15 km of vehicle testing tracks. Presumably they don’t test the vacuum cleaners on these.
OK, the idea of producing vacuum cleaners and EVs seems ludicrous. However, I’ve often noticed that advertising for vacuum cleaners has a lot in common with quite a few car ads, ranting and raving about the power of the motor and how many kilowatts it can do. In fact, I think that cars (OK, boats and motorbikes as well if you’re picky) and vacuum cleaners are the only things that use engine power as a selling point. Dyson’s experience with filters and air flow will probably also come in handy for designing a car. Maybe we’ll also see some interesting styling, given the way that Dyson produced a completely new style of vacuum cleaner when they put out their Dual Cyclone.
However, we need to hope that the Dyson EVs have better handling ability than the typical vacuum cleaner. I don’t know about you, but I always have much more trouble getting a vacuum cleaner to go where I want it to, and they’re probably worse than supermarket shopping trolleys for bad handling. Work to be done here, Dyson!
We also need to hope that Dyson learns a thing or three about pricing if they want to be really competitive. Dyson may be the luxury marque for vacuums (and hair dryers, fans and hand dryers) but is there really room in the luxury EV market for somebody other than Tesla? Especially now that more widely known makers, especially the European ones, are turning more and more to EVs and hybrids. Your typical Dyson vacuum costs about 10 times as much as the bog-standard vacuum, after all.
My one humble suggestion to Dyson would also be to change the name for the vehicle line. Toyota may be able to get away with producing sewing machines but they’re better known for their cars. Not everybody does home sewing but most people except total slobs use vacuum cleaners. Dyson, however, is a big name in the household appliance world, so that is going to be what people think of first when somebody announces that they’ve just bought a new Dyson with a powerful motor. It doesn’t quite have the same kudos or cachet as, say, Lexus or Mercedes. Perhaps Cyclone, in honour of the Dual Cyclone, or JD Motors for James Dyson would do the job.
It will be interesting to see if this venture comes off. If it does, would you drive a Dyson car? Would you prefer them to use a different brand name? Does the idea suck or does it clean up? Tell us what you think!
Oh yes – if Dyson could add in an in-car vacuum cleaner so we can clean up mess straight away, that would be grand!
Level 2, 9 Help Street