Dyson Will Build Its Electric Cars in Singapore

[Vlad Kovalenko + 115]

Dyson will build a two-story factory in Singapore to assemble its highly anticipated electric cars. The construction would start in December and be completed sometime in 2020. The nation was selected,  according to chief executive Jim Rowan, because of its "significant advanced manufacturing expertise," supply chain benefits and access to high-growth markets. 

It’s still unclear at this point if Dyson’s EVs will be equipped with solid-state batteries or regular li-ion battery cells.  The company acquired Michigan-based solid-state battery startup Sakti3 for $90 million and announced plans to build an important $1 billion battery factory to mass produce the next generation battery technology.

Recently, it started to look like Dyson was moving away from its solid-state technology and the company has now written-off almost its entire investment in Sakti3. 

Edited October 23, 2018 by Vlad Kovalenko

[BlackTortoise + 103]

It seems a little strange considering the UK is one of the top automotive manufacturing nations in Europe, and Singapore's automotive manufacturing industry is limited. I suspect that Dyson's EV entry will turn out to be some Twizy-like urban transportation device rather than a full-sized car.

[Brian W + 78]

They probably have chosen Singapore because they want to open a small scale manufacturing plant. Later if the product is successful, they can open a larger factory in Europe or more possible China. Unless it's just R&D with a pilot plant to churn out a small number of cars. Once the testing is done they can start to build the real plant in somewhere more suitable.

[Adam Varga + 123]

More interesting for me is that companies are walking away from solid state batteries. Many OEMs are depending on these for their vehicles in 2025. ICE OEMs love committing to solid-state, because it's eternally 2+ years away. 

[Brian W + 78]

They will use lithium ion. When someone like Sakti3 has essentially failed to get their tech off the lab bench, solid state is going to be very much delayed and probably expensive. Lithium ion will have all that time to drive prices down lower.But they are basing their 'next gen' assumptions of range, weight, cost, charging all on tech that might not pan out. Even then their 'next gen' tech is only scheduled to compete with Telsa's tech today.

[Vlad Kovalenko + 115]

 Tesla have last tech in lithium ion and nobody else  produce even 10% of the amount of Tesla is. It's stupid, but everyone else is so slow in getting things done. I wish that's not the true, so we can get more EV's out there, but it's just sad how car companies are slow.

[Auson + 123]

11 minutes ago, Vlad Kovalenko said:

 Tesla have last tech in lithium ion and nobody else  produce even 10% of the amount of Tesla is. It's stupid, but everyone else is so slow in getting things done. I wish that's not the true, so we can get more EV's out there, but it's just sad how car companies are slow.

When you say Tesla you mean Panasonic right ? Are Samsung lithium ion batteries not as good ?

[Vlad Kovalenko + 115]

Correct, I was talking about Panasonic. I'm just saying that Tesla has a huge advantage when speaking about batteries. All Tesla battery packs however are very well engineered. They last a long term and suffer very gradual degradation.  Tesla also have larger batteries which means faster charging regardless of per cell limitations and best battery management on the market.