Dyson Is In Talks To Make Electric Cars In Singapore

Talk about a curve ball. From the guys who brought you futuristic looking stand fans and incredibly effective vacuum cleaners and hairdryers comes the proposition to build electric cars that would be able to take on Tesla - and they'd be made in Singapore. According to a Bloomberg report, Dyson has been considering Singapore as a production site for a proposed electric car - one that has yet to see a single working prototype - as it would better position them to enter Asian markets (Read: China).

The factory is to be completed by 2020, which is no mean feat because we're already almost at the end of 2018. The first model is slated for roll out by 2021, which is also pretty insane in terms of deadline considering most manufacturers struggle to get the development process down to under two years, not including all the testing and safety assessments involved. If Dyson really does have a car in the works, they've played it extremely close to the vest.

Beyond the obvious benefits of entering the Asian market from Singapore, there doesn't really seem to be much rationale. Labour in Singapore can be expensive and the nation itself sees very poor car sales (intentionally, however), and the last automobile production site in Singapore was Ford, which closed down in the 1980s. 

The problem with Dyson openly taking on Tesla and other contemporary manufacturers is that they're riding waves of success from their products that became instant hits - and the automotive landscape isn't necessarily like that. Cars are much larger value propositions than household items, and the thought process and rationale for purchase is vastly different.

More important than that is the sheer difficulty in producing a functioning car, which Tesla is finding out now after facing months and months of production and logistics issues. Whether Dyson is cleverer than Tesla remains to be seen, but hopefully they've got the right people within their 400-strong automotive team.