Dyson plans the Hoover-Moover

Sir James Dyson with a...thing.

Yes, you read that right. The consumer electronics company that brought you bag-less vacuum cleaners and bladeless fans, amongst many other items, is allegedly planning an electric car project all of its own - a sort of Hoover-Moover, if you like.

There has been no official confirmation on the swirling rumours about the new project from Dyson itself, but news has leaked from no less than the British Government after it had invested millions of pounds of taxpayers money into the project, and thus probably thought it had a right to let the public know what was going on.

The move by Dyson to join the ranks of Tesla and others as a new and certainly non-traditional automotive brand was outlined in the UK Government’s National Infrastructure Plan, in which it was stated that “The government is funding Dyson to develop a new battery-electric vehicle at their headquarters in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, which will secure £174m of investment in the area, creating over 500 jobs, mostly in engineering.”

Whilst Dyson has been decidedly tight-lipped on the development, it has been a sort of open secret for some time, with numerous patents already filed for automotive ideas in the past five years and regularly assigning headhunters to scour car companies and racing teams alike for engineering and aerodynamic specialists. Dyson also bought into a solid state battery manufacturer called SAKTI3, a spin-off from Michigan University, a few years ago to further its drive to create disruptive technologies.

The Dyson Company, founded by Sir James Dyson, has a long track record of turning inventions into very profitable products. He started in 1970 with a Fast Cargo Ship called the Rotork Sea Truck whilst still in college, a design that has endured and is still on sale today. He then ventured into consumer products with his Ball-Barrow and, perhaps a lot more famously, his dual cyclone vacuum cleaners.

There are no designs or pictures available yet and of course no mention of where the EV will be manufactured. And whilst the UK Government may want it to be in the UK, Dyson currently has Malaysia as its manufacturing base. We wonder if the car will clean the garage floor after you park up for the night.