Can the Apple of vacuum cleaners pivot and build an electric car better than Tesla's? Even though electric vehicles make up around one percent of total car sales every year, it seems like everyone is looking to get a piece of the action. From the names you'd expect like Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, GM, to big players from completely different industries like Apple, Google and now Dyson, are looking to make their mark in this emerging technology.
Perhaps seeing Musk take his idea and turn it into a $200 billion company has made companies sit up and notice but since the Tesla Model S in 2012, not one competitor has delivered a car capable of competing. Enter Sir James Dyson of vacuum cleaning and blade-less fan fame. If there's one guy capable of engineering magic, it's him.
For one, Dyson is a privately held company so it;s not beholden to shareholders and their fickle whims. He has also set up a major R&D shop as well as a manufacturing facility in Singapore. He says that the cars will begin production in 2020 which is seven months away but to cut him some slack, he has 19 months to do so and he'd still be accurate.
The exciting thing about electric cars isn't so much the cars but the research and progress in battery technology. The better we are able to store energy, reduce wastage and increase availability, that's going to be the big game changer for green technology and our planet. In fact, ExxonMobil highlighted battery technology as the biggest threat facing the oil industry in the next 20 years. Hopefully corporate greed and corruption does not stymie technological improvement like it did back in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
If you're interested in reading more:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billroberson/2019/05/29/can-the-dyson-vacuum-cleaner-guy-build-a-better-electric-car-than-teslas-elon-musk/#7615168511c2
