Dyson has scrapped its electric car project | Hacker News Reader

Dyson has scrapped its electric car project

bbc.com

157 pointshhs244 comments

Another British gadget luminary, Sir Clive Sinclair (of early homecomputer ZX-81 fame) also tried his hand at electric vehicles in the 1980s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5

The product line was supposed to grow to include a two-seater C10 and a three-seater C15, but the C5 flopped so badly that those more car-like models never got produced.

Specifically, as @m-i-l noted (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20745170):

> One of the "selling points" of the Sinclair C5 was that its electric motor was built by Hoover and would be serviced at the existing network of vacuum cleaner service centres

----

But generally, microcars are fun. Eshelman upscaled their ‘Child Sport Car’ (i.e. a Barbie Jeep) and made a three-horsepower Adult Sport Car: https://i.imgur.com/bXXQIlg.jpg

And then they got carried away: https://i.imgur.com/EMicATK.jpg https://i.imgur.com/0CDiztK.jpg

Notably though, Eshelman began by making lightweight aircraft but somehow switched to light garden tractors before the microcars. But my favorite design of theirs is the Rocket Boat: https://i.imgur.com/4pLbmfe.jpg

That rocket boat looks like a swimmer skewer.

Well, I now know what would work splendidly in a B-video for Trve Kvlt Svrf: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hZAraJrlM5I

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VMBznF446Qg

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZIqE_501PZI

The Spectrum was quite a success as well :-)

Regarding the C5 : it only now makes me think of the introduction of the Segway. Lots of hype, didn't live up to the dream.

And : my physics teacher had a C5. However at the time it was not road legal in The Netherlands so he had to stop using it for his commute. This may have limited adoption.

Also, the C5 was not only ahead of its time regarding the electric aspect of it, it also introduced a sitting / lying position ahead of the popularity of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle.

I'm surprised at this - seems bizarre that it's a 'great product' but isn't commercially viable in any way?

As an aside, I really can't understand why people are so enthusiastic about Dyson products - I find them to be poor to use and poor performers. My gf has a dyson vacuum cleaner (a v6, I think), and it's terrible. Battery life is minimal, the suction is poor compared to anything I've used in the past, all the novelty parts of it (motorised roller, etc) turned to filthy junk pretty quickly, and it trashes the bearings for the carpet roller with monotonous regularity as it can't deal with hair (household with three females with long hair). Emptying it can only be described as like giving a Wookee a prostate examination - it's a revolting process that makes mess everywhere and means I have to scrub my hands afterwards (it doesn't empty like it does in the advert if you have any hair present in there, which there always is in my case).

I had a V1 dyson back in the day, and it was useless as you couldn't get under any furniture. Dyson hand dryers in public toilets don't dry your hands in the claimed 10 seconds, they take about the same time as any other dryer, and usually lead to wet washroom floors as they blow the water all over the place.

I just don't get it - is it form over function and people go mad for them, but clearly I'm missing something. I know he employs incredibly clever people, and no doubt things have been engineered within an inch of their lives, but it always seems they're optomising variables that I don't care about.

> they take about the same time as any other dryer

This is false. Before the Dyson Airblade and the really loud Xlerator ones, World Dryer was the most common hand dryer (in America at least), and they are awful. Forget about 10 seconds, you could stand there for 60 seconds and still want to use paper towels after.

Xlerators are an auditory health hazard. You can hear them running outside the gym before you can hear the music blaring.

All hand dryers are a health hazard. They're a wet, warm, bacteria incubator that can then aerosolize the bacteria.

In contrast, the mechanical action of drying your hands with a paper towel is an additional antibacterial step.

Why do you imagine that normal hands dryers are wet? The original Dyson airblades? Sure. Those are gross. Normal air dryers don’t have anywhere to store water, and if somehow you got water inside, it would rapidly dry itself out from normal use.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-...

I had to read all of 4 sentences to see that this does not say that air dryers are growing bacteria. In fact it says the opposite, that there was very little bacteria in the nozzles. There is bacteria in the air and the dryers are sucking it in and pushing it onto hands being dried.

False.

The emerging research showing hearing damage to children, who stand closer and lower in to the air blower, is pretty damning.

I'll pretty much never use these if I can avoid it. Paper towel is quick, it's quiet, it's mess free, and it's made out of a renewable resource that pulls CO2 from the air. What's not to like about paper towels?

Brought to light with some nice work by a junior researcher recently, https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739783918/hand-dryers-harm-ch...

I wipe my hands on my pants.

I can’t stand that noise those Dyson Airblade makes, it’s just as unpleasant as the Xlerator’s and I generally avoid bathrooms with either hand dryer.

Normal models may be slower, but the only way they are taking 60 seconds if it’s broken or you never move your hands.

Maybe because they were bold enough to make the trade-off. In a competition hand dryer that doesn't really work vs one that damages your hearing... I'll keep wet hands thanks.

That damages your hearing? Surely there must be a space between. Long time ago in a McDonald's in Poland I used one that would dry your hands in 5 seconds flat. It was powerful and loud, but only as loud as a blender. Which is loud, but not painful or damaging to ears...

EDIT: it looked similar to this one:

https://www.qbicwashrooms.co.uk/magnum-multidry-hand-dryer-w...

Except it had even lower power rating. I don't get why this states "25 seconds". Do people have hands made from sponge?

> I don't get why this states "25 seconds". Do people have hands made from sponge?

I don’t know why 25 seconds is hard to believe. That’s the manufacturer’s claim. I’d imagine if anything their claim is optimistic and the 60 seconds people claim is more realistic.

If you have washed your hands properly, you’ll have several milliliters of water spread across the surface. Slow blowing warm air isn’t going to dry that off in 5 seconds.

There was this TED talk once about shaking your hands twice to only need one towel. I've been doing it ever since and an Airblade will dry my hands in 10 seconds.

It's 12 times and leaves quite a mess

That's what the sink is for.

Yeah, I apparently misremembered the number (I guess I'm lazy to go for 2-3 usually, but I think it's the 20% effort that gets you 80% there). And I never had a mess cause I do it over the sink.

Only it was twelve times.

Thank you, I guess I misremembered. But 2-3 times works for me.

> I don’t know why 25 seconds is hard to believe.

Because it's 2.5 kilowatt blower making 78 dB of noise, according to the technical spec under that link. With these parameters, you should be able to dry your hands in 5 seconds while keeping them a meter away. Like with the one I mentioned seeing in that McDonald's, which was AFAIR rated at something around 1.2 kW (and I remember thinking that's already impressive for a hand dryer).

> Slow blowing warm air isn’t going to dry that off in 5 seconds.

But fast blowing, slightly less warm air would.

I was subtly suggesting that the reason may be what 'carlmr mentioned in a parallel reply - maybe people don't shake off the water after washing their hands, preferring instead to both waste their time at the dryer and add work to the cleaning stuff that now has extra water to mop off the floor?

> Because it's 2.5 kilowatt blower making 78 dB of noise, according to the technical spec under that link. With these parameters, you should be able to dry your hands in 5 seconds while keeping them a meter away.

This is a really bizarre statement. You throw some numbers up and then say “obviously it should work how I said”. But it’s not obvious at all. Those numbers don’t intuitively tell me that it should my hands in 5 seconds. Indeed my intuition (and that manufacturer’s specs) says that’s wildly inaccurate.

I’m really confused by your “1 meter away” claim. At a meter away you’re basically just waiting for ambient air to dry your hands. The fact that they measure decibels a meter away doesn’t mean that’s where your hands should be.

My statement is this: I've used a sub-2kW blower that could dry hands in below 10 seconds, was loud but not painful, and if you somehow made it portable, it could double as a leaf blower in a pinch. 1 meter from the nozzle the stream was still powerful enough to dry hands faster than ambient air. So the numbers people throw around this thread are weird, they imply unrealisticly wet hands, or ridiculously inefficient dryers.

I think the fact that your numbers are so much drastically lower than the manufacturer’s numbers indicates that your numbers are not representative of the typical experience. Maybe you can dry your hands in five seconds with the typical air dryer. It’s clearly not true for most people. Maybe you shake your hands extremely dry before going to the dryer. Maybe after using the dryer your hands are still wet and clammy. I don’t know. Your experiences are clearly not reflective of the typical case, though.

All I know is that Dyson hand dryers and Animal vacuum cleaners are well above my pain threshold. I think using them regularly certainly would damage my hearing. I actively avoid them.

It's down to diversity, I suppose. I'm no super-hearer (I don't really think my hearing is different to anyone else's) but obviously the engineers at Dyson didn't care about people like me.

I use another brand of 'blade' type dryers (I forget which) every day and it's fine.

Sorry, it's not false. I dried my hands using an Airblade V2 on Saturday in a services washroom. I timed it. It took 32 seconds. I did the same when using another make (when I was at PyconUK, in Cardiff city hall, feel free to check them out), and it took 30 seconds.

Was the other drying one that used a similar design as Dyson's Airblade or something that predates it? Because the parent was talking about the state of the art for hand dryers before Dyson and I concur with them, it was pretty shit. On the other hand I wouldn't be surprised if other vendors these days managed to clone Dyson's design and even improve on it.

I don't get the times in this thread. 30 seconds is still ridiculously long. I could dry my hands with a hair dryer at minimum setting faster than that. On Dyson ones I used I could dry my hands in under 15 seconds. How are you people drying your hands?

I don't get the craze for those fastest but actually slow hand dryers I dry them on jeans pockets and it takes two seconds top

You should consider that perhaps everyone else isn’t crazy. Dyson claims 12 seconds. Undoubtedly that is optimistic and many people will find it takes longer if they aren’t doing it exactly the way Dyson expects.

Personally I like the new air blades but also don’t find that they fully dry my hands. They get most of the water off and I move in with life. If I wanted my hands towel dry, I’m pretty sure I’d need more than 12 seconds.

Stop using air dryers in bathrooms. They blow fecal matter all over the place.

>Hand dryers suck in fecal bacteria and blow it all over your hands, study finds. We know fecal bacteria shoots into the air when a lidless toilet flushes — a phenomenon known, grossly, as a "toilet plume." ... Into a hand dryer and onto your clean hands, perhaps. That's what a new study suggests.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bathroom-hand-dryers-or-pape...

Most bathrooms with hand dryers eschew the paper. So the alternative is just walking around with wet hands? Or not washing your hands at all?

Also, how do you open the door in a sanitary way, knowing that many of the hands on that door are really dirt? I remember visiting Google in Palo Alto (old Nest office, I think), and they had ingenious foot-level protrusions that you could use to open the door. Wish they were everywhere, especially as hand dryers replace paper towels!

Here's the secret to drying your hands:

1. Wring them over the sink.

2. Spread your fingers.

3. Shake them for 5 seconds.

That's it, you're done. 15 seconds after you leave the bathroom, your hands will be dry.

Disclaimer: Does not work as well in colder-than-room-temperature environments.

In my coworking space with only hand dryers (eco friendly attempt) I just tear a couple paper towels off in the kitchen and bring them in with me.

The whole "eco friendly" thing about hand dryers never made sense to me. In fact, I think it's a marketing ploy by the air dryer makers. Paper towels are great, and they come from trees, which we can and want to grow more of.

Well, paper and textile production is dirty as hell. Ask anyone old enough to have lived in a mill town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_paper

I have. From that wiki article, paper mills account for less than 1% of GHGs globally. Also, the most hazardous chemical effluent is dioxins, which have seen major reductions globally within the pulp and paper industry because the industry has switched to processes that use much less chlorine.

I suspect the benefits accrue mostly to the owner of the restroom, as they can cut back on trash removal.

Hand sanitizer (if available) actually does a great job of drying off hands as well!

... or you can just carry a handkerchief with you.

> I really can't understand why people are so enthusiastic about Dyson products

If you've used one and don't get it, you may not be the target audience. On multiple occasions, I've asked a friend of mine to try various products I use which I believe are excellent in many ways, only to be told that they were average or junk compared to what he uses. I believe what he uses mostly to be complete and utter junk! So I don't know ...

As far as Dyson vacuums go, V10 tipped over for me. The suction improved noticeably as did the run time. The bin is quite larger as well and my pet peeve, emptying the bin cleanly, is done perfectly in V10. I used to have to deal with hair in previous models. After V10, I never once touched the inside of the bin to do extra cleaning.

The motor head in V10 does not get hair in it. It's like magic!

As far as industrial design and feel of it goes, it's a pleasure to hold and use, so much that I sometimes over vacuum.

The warranty and support is the best as usual, even past warranty period.

>If you've used one and don't get it, you may not be the target audience.

I need to clean things, I think I'm the target audience!

Maybe from what you say then the V10 could swing me (certainly sounds like it has the issues that annoy me sorted out), but that's what was said about the V6 - corded replacement, easy empty, long running time, etc!

My wife always loved her dust buster and rarely, if ever, used a regular vacuum. It never held a charge, didn't have much suction, and was really difficult to empty and clean. She loves her Dyson stick vacuum. She gushes about it when it comes up. It's better at each of those things, but isn't great.

Personally, I like using the Roomba. It's not great, either, but I don't mind picking up the room and letting it run.

I'm sure there's a large market for traditional vacuums, those always seem to get most recommended. Miele canisters are always considered "the best," but reviewers know most people aren't interested just because of the price.

> V6 - corded replacement

There is a huge range of corded vacuums that should not exist. I'd say this line is marketing crap. Even V10 isn't corded replacement across all corded vacuums.

> I need to clean things, I think I'm the target audience!

It all depends on your use case. If all you have is hard floor and a studio sized apartment, you don't even need a vacuum cleaner. Same way not every one needs a Ferrari to get from point A to B. Dyson's price range is certainly a good indicator as to why it's for a smaller market than your average vacuum cleaner.

I also need to use the internet and apps and yet Android or Windows will never get a cent of my money, but Apple does. You're the target if you value what the product design emphasises. In this case, you're on the other end of the spectrum of Dyson. Much like an India is on the other end of the spectrum of Apple.

I ditched a Dyson cordless for a corded Miele. Doesn't run out in the middle of cleaning, doesn't clog with hair, much more powerful. I think bagged vacuum cleaners are so much less maintenance.

Having a cord is no inconvenience to me, I would rather have the power and indurance.

I also have a problem with Dyson himself...

It's great that they've improved, but I'm still confused about the hype. The best Dysons I've used are worse than my old, $400 Miele. They may be competitive now, but it took them 10 revisions to get to a point other manufacturers have been at for 20 years.

They feel like a vacuum marketing company more than anything. People seem to like them because they've only ever used $100 vacuums and it's their first time with something better, so it feels awesome in comparison.

V6, V7 ... V10, these are all battery powered one handed vacuum cleaners that have zero setup time and few seconds to clean and put away. Is your $400 Miele in this category or are you comparing this with a wall powered vacuum that has 1000w and unlimited power at its disposal?

I have two comparisons in mind. I've used a corded, $500 Dyson, and it's really awful. So many little, annoying design decisions and just an overall lack of power for a corded vacuum.

For the cordless ones, I've used the V7 (I think), and it's worse than a comparable Bosch.

Again, I'm not saying that Dysons are bad or anything... It's just the hype seems to far outmatch the actual quality when you go to use them, and it's taken them years and years just to get competitive.

> People seem to like them because they've only ever used $100 vacuums and it's their first time with something better, so it feels awesome in comparison.

This is my experience with Cutco knives. They're better than the absolute bottom of the barrel eversharp stuff you can get for $10, but worse than anything that actually looks like a proper kitchen knife.

I think the main reason they get any business is that most people never sharpen their kitchen knives, which is a lot less expensive than buying a set of Cutcos (I get that there's a social pressure aspect as well, but that wouldn't work nearly as well if it were more clear how garbage Cutco's products are).

Milwaukee Smooth Insulation knife. They cost ~$20, are full tang, and sharpen very easily. They have become our go to kitchen knife. Best bang for the buck imho. People who did duct work and attic batting were found to be using $200-$300 kitchen knives. Milwaukee went back to the drawing board and came up with an excellent product.

IMO, if you're looking for low cost, the Ikea 365+ knife set is the best thing out there. It's 3 pieces for $30 and comes with a Chef's knife.

The steel is mediocre, but not so different from high end German knives (if you want good steel, Japanese is the way to go).

I've had both a decently priced Miele and a Dyson barrel vacuum before (can't remember the model numbers now, this was a while ago) and when dealing with pets and my wife's hair the Dyson wins hands down. The Miele clogged horribly. I guess it depends on what you're vacuuming, but I'd try Miele again.

Now I have a Dyson V-8 cordless and it works fine. It runs long enough to vacuum the whole house and a bit more and is more convenient than anything corded.

I bought vacuums that were supposed to be as good as Dysons and they always sucked (though there are some Sharks I've heard good things about). Then I finally bought a Dyson (a v7) and it's been great. Great design and function.

Isn't sucking what a vacuum cleaner's supposed to do ? :)

In my experience Dysons are overpriced garbage. Do yourself a favor and buy a miele next time.

It doesn't look like miele makes a cordless stick vacuum to go up against his V7. I've got a Dyson V8 and it is the best vacuum I've ever owned. I'd be happy to try a miele if they made something comparable though.

Dyson really got the bagless vacuums to become the dominant vacuum in the USA. I think while it looks cool and relieving to see lots of stuff whirl in a transparent tornado chamber, it is far inferior to actually having a bag. You then have to dump out a dusty dirt container somewhere (hopefully not inside) and clean and sometimes replace an expensive filter. Vacuum bags are pretty cheap, and biodegradable, and much cleaner to replace. It holds a lot more too before affecting suction resulting in less empties.

Plus our municipal garbage pickup explicitly requires you to bag dirty or dusty trash like this (ex: furnace filters) so I end up transferring from a bag-less vacuum to a bag, plus get dirt and dust everywhere and can never get all the crud out of the vacuum canister.

The vacuum is OK, but having to clean the canister multiple times per use is a major pain. Bagged are superior for this reason alone.

I agree. I wasted a lot of time and money on bagless vacuums before realizing that I spent more time cleaning and futzing with them than with the actual vacuuming. Got a Panasonic bagged upright and it is nice; cleans well and I don't have to do anything but throw the bag away after a while.

I personally love Dyson system. I have an old Dyson working, so powerful that making new ones of that power is forbidden in the UE.

Dumping the dusty container is much better than using bags in my own experience. When I used them they were extremely expensive and hard to find. The vacuum loses power as it fills.

If bags are cheap, that I don't know, it is only because Dyson has made them a commodity.

Using it for years (maybe decades) and never changed the filter, which is extremely easy to clean regularly.

Dyson may recommnend a new filter but our's has run for 18 years with no extra purchases of that kind (we clean the filters ourselves. No problem). Brilliant machine and easily the most impressive domestic product we've ever purchased. Greater suction power would likely be dangerous in some circumstances. Not having to replace bags is such a bonus.

We had one of the V1 (or maybe V2?) vacuums and it had some obvious design floors: e.g. the exhaust blew forward out of the front, so if you were trying to suck up some fluff, the exhaust blew it away from the vacuum! You had to reverse over it to get it - madness!

I remember ranting about it whenever they were held up as masters of industrial design etc - clearly people saying that did not have one :)

I've not used any since, so don't know if they are any better these days or not.

I have a Dyson DC33 and can confirm that the exhaust blowing dust away from the vacuum is still a major problem.

I end up chasing bits of pet hair around the floor with it because it blows them away faster than I can vacuum them up.

This airblade hand drier design nonsense has to stop. I was at a hotel in Miami some time ago and they had these airblade style drivers integrated into the water tap, like bars sticking out on either side, right over the sink. I took one look at it and went “nope, that’s terrible design; water’s going to spray everywhere.” As I’m leaving the guy who came up after me yells of a very annoyed “god damnit” as water sprays all over his blue shirt.

Whoever designed that really shouldn’t be designing things.

Yes, these are hilarious. First time I encountered them and was splattered with water, I thought "I must've just been pranked.. where's the candid camera at?".

When moving to the US we decided to not skimp out on the vacuum and went with a Dyson Ball Animal 2 (an almost $500). It's one of the worst vacuums I've ever used. It's clunky, has poor suction and is a pain in the ass to empty/clean. I don't know if it's because it's an upright or if it's just a bad vacuum. Every canister style vacuum I've used in the past have been a pleasure to use compared to the Dyson. I even prefer to use my ShopVac over the Dyson for the house... :(

We had one of those. Terrible bit of equipment. Flimsy plastics, never stayed upright, no tools. Waste of money.

You probably should of did a little bit of research an got a Miele.

We had a Miele back in Sweden, which was great. Unfortunately they're a bit more difficult to come by around here, which is why we went with the Dyson (which we did research ahead of buying). It just seems the people reviewing the Dyson must never have used a good vacuum before :(

I have a V7 that my mother in law gave us and the cordless part is the only thing it has going for it. It doesn't do nearly as good a job as our corded Miele but it's good enough that I'll use it to spot clean when I don't want to lug that out.

Honestly curious, what kind of floors are you cleaning where you notice this, really deep carpets or something? I feel like the suction on my dyson v6 is perfectly adequate, better than any other cordless I've used and as good as an average bigger vacuum. We have mostly laminate floors and some really short carpets in the bedroom, and on either surface the dyson works well, pretty much gets everything visible after a single pass. I definitely don't feel a need to get a bigger vacuum for deeper cleans or anything.

I'm pretty much the same way. No pets, a lot of hardwood floors, mostly oriental carpets where I have them, etc.

I got a V8 after my old cheap handheld vacuum died, in part because I almost never could be bothered hauling my old canister vac out of the closet. (I have a housekeeper once in a while so that mostly takes care of the full-house periodic vacuuming.)

It works plenty well for my needs and it's so quick and easy to pull out and do a quick pass of a room or two.

The brush attachment is actually quite good on rugs/carpet, but most of our house is hardwood or tile. The hard floor attachment we have is basically a soft roller that is supposed to sweep debris backwards and funnel it to the actual vacuum inlet. This doesn't work particularly well and will sometimes fling debris out the back, and the design also seems to mean that it works best pushing forward, rather than just vacuuming in kind of a W motion. I have a theory that this is worsened because our house is old and the floors are not that even, so maybe it's not able to trap debris as effectively? Our other normal vacuum's hardwood attachment is the super simple suction cone type thing, and that will suck up basically anything in it's path.

I have a V6 as well and mostly hard floors, but I have 2 Golden Retrievers as well. Iv'e been using it near daily for 5 years now and it works fine; maybe I have to empty it a couple times, but that takes a few seconds.

I combined it with a Neato Robot Vac a few years ago and with those 2 I rarely have to take out my behemoth Miele vacuum anymore.

The Airblade that has the slot to put your hands in is just nasty. It's like playing the game "operation", but instead you get gross germs on your supposedly clean hands.

The Airblade "V" I find good enough, but still not worth all the hype.

I agree. What a gross, ineffective and shitty gimmick in the name of "design". There are some things that don't need to be reinvented, at least not in worse ways.

I tried a few Dyson vacs and was never much impressed by them. I got a Miele canister vac recently and that thing has blown me away with how effective it is. Quiet, powerful, and very well and thoughtfully designed.

I never understood the appeal of the Dyson 'bladeless' desk fans. They have fan blades, they're just in the base. The novelty isn't worth the $272 (current amazon price) to me.

The real "benefit" of the bladeless fan is that it produces continuous wind rather than choppy wind. It's not exactly something you notice until you learn about it though. Then suddenly you start notice that regular fans actually are choppy.

Well at least that's something I guess

I love my v8, you are right it isn’t the “best” vacuum cleaner, but it is so easy to use casually that I don’t really care. I might upgrade to a v10 someday because it fixes the emptying container problem, but I can even live with that for the moment.

If someone knows of any better cordless full sized vacuum cleaners, I’d love to know about them. Right now there are lot of low quality Chinese models available, but if you have problems with the Dyson, then you definitely wouldn’t be happy with those.

Supposedly the LG cordless vacuums are good, but double the price I paid for a v8. We have two floors of stairs leading up to our apartment so being cordless is a huge time saver.

I think Dyson has tried to position itself as a Veblen good.

Dyson cordless stick vacuums are excellent in the rather limited sense that there doesn’t seem to be much credible competition. LG at least seems to be trying. I would love a good stick vacuum with a bag.

I find it rather annoying that every generation of them seems gratuitously incompatible with every other generation, and they don’t seem all that well designed or particularly reliable.

I've loved my Oreck upright vacuum, so when they came out with their cordless vacuum, I jumped on it. It uses a disposable pod to contain all the junk, and it has plenty of power and a long lasting battery.

> I'm surprised at this - seems bizarre that it's a 'great product' but isn't commercially viable in any way?

If you had a reputation for highly engineered/polished electric devices, would you admit that you hadn't managed to build a working electric car?

You'd put up some vague reason that's impossible to disprove, and try to salvage your reputation.

Heh, I mentioned my dyson problems to a repair place and they said "die-soon" and laughed. They do have a somewhat innovative design, but are made almost entirely of plastic and just don't last very long.

Sure it's kind of cool to skip having to have replace vacuum bags, but it's much more of a pain to have to replace the entire unit because of a relatively minor problem.

So I think it's mostly just good marketing and attractive products and consumers who don't look at the reliability/expected lifetime before purchase.

> As an aside, I really can't understand why people are so enthusiastic about Dyson products - I find them to be poor to use and poor performers.

A few family/friends had Dyson vacuums over the years - always worked pretty good but failed frequently. Generally they grew to dislike Dyson products based on those experiences. I now have a perception of low reliability towards Dyson products as a result.

However, many of the same friends/family (years later) now have Dyson stick vacuums and swear by them.

> Dyson hand dryers in public toilets don't dry your hands in the claimed 10 seconds, they take about the same time as any other dryer, and usually lead to wet washroom floors as they blow the water all over the place.

I find these particularly disgusting with how the design promotes build up.

> Dyson hand dryers in public toilets

Just disgusting mold and bacteria traps, absolutely terrible design, just blows the water back in on itself and it collects or leaks down the side of the walls. Give me an Xlerator Dryer any day.

Agreed. I was blown away in Japan though. They have Panasonic and Mitsubishi dryers that are similar looking to the Dyson models but they're much quieter and don't seem to have the same design problems (somehow) or they're just better at keeping them clean (probably).

Bought a V8 cordless and my wife is raving happy about it every time she vacuums, the other alternative was Bosch, although I trust the brand very much when it comes to vacuums I'd rather not risk it.

> I'm surprised at this - seems bizarre that it's a 'great product' but isn't commercially viable in any way? As an aside, I really can't understand why people are so enthusiastic about Dyson products

You already gave the answer: Dyson products are pricey for what they offer, so Dyson has a healthy profit margin (20%+), which isn't possible at this time with EV due to very strong competition that's not keen on being profitable, but makes very good cars and has a significant lead in advanced car software too.

I bought a dyson V6 refurb on ebay from the dyson store for roughly the same cost as a branded upright vacuum. I live in a 550 sq ft apartment, space is a premium. It's compact (Hangs on a wall in a cupboard, taking up a space that we wouldn't use anything else for, rather than a large part of one of our other small cupboards) - the battery life is about 20 minutes, which is enough time to clean my entire apartment in one go, it fits under all my furniture, hoovers up our pet hair.

What more could I ask for?

Do you have a better battery-powered vacuum to recommend? That's an important feature and comparing them to corded vacuums is comparing different things.

Previously she had a Bosch. Forget the model number. It worked well (I thought it was a viable corded replacement), but it died after a few years (apparently a common problem), and that prompted the purchase of a Miele corded vacuum (way better, but again died, this time due to the motor taking a bath!)... then the Dyson, which was billed as a corded vacuum replacement. To me, it's a glorified dustbuster.

> To me, it's a glorified dustbuster.

I recently bought V11 and have been blown away with how well it does its job and how effortless vacuuming has become. As a corgi owner, I am forced to do vacuuming pretty much every day and I could not stand dragging a regular vacuum cleaner with a cord everywhere, especially up the stairs... I honestly don't understand how I was able to live without a cordless vac for so long!

Oreck makes good cordless vacuums.

> the suction is poor compared to anything I've used in the past

What did you use in the past?

She had a Bosch cordless one previously, that was better. It's supposed to be capable of replacing your corded one, but it's simply not up to the task - any corded vacuum I've had was better - a £30 LG was -way- better than the Dyson it replaced (when the motor failed, it was BER), and lasted a lot longer. If I need to clean the car, I'd do it with my old Henry that I found by the side of the road.

ahh ok. I have the v11. Seems to work fine, I clean my house car ect. But I haven't really compared it against others.

I'm not the op but my wife bought a Dyson. It was a piece of crap and and suffered all the problems and more the op mentioned. Broke after a couple years and we ditched it.

I went back to using my 20 year old Dirt Devil. That thing is awesome and will suck up anything. Emptying it is slightly annoying but it's way better than the Dyson ever was.

The v6 is old, if your gf's had it for a while the battery's probably on its last legs, and it didn't last that long to begin with anyways.

The more recent models have plenty of battery life.

Just what the world needed, one more thing you have to completely throw out just because the battery's worn...

Battery tech improves. That's just reality.

Bose. Bang & Olufsen.

Back when CRT televisions were the only option, Bang & Olufsen really made televisions of that era look great. But with flatscreens, everyone can make a television look great, so they've lost their edge.

My point being, I don't think the comparison is fair. B&O used to be something. I don't think Dyson ever was.

Are you sure BO are in the same class as Dyson ? BO seemed to me a very niche luxury brand, Dyson is way more mainstream. Both have different values.

I believe B & O just did the enclosures and used other manufacturers parts so you basically bought a Philips TV in another jacket.

I can't say for sure but I'm dubious. I saw some BO CRT internals and it was more on the over engineered [0] custom designs than stamping somebody else's work. But maybe it varied over the years.

[0] to the point of causing electronicians headaches because the technology used was too peculiar

Yep. We took a B&O VHS machine in to be fixed. Guy who specialized in fixing them, had a pile of pre-shelled guts he just fitted into the pretty B&O case.

Yep. In the days of CRTs, Sony’s heavily patented Trinitron (aperture grille) CRT tech was the best by miles - no way B&O could engineer that themselves.

I don't know if you've used a B&O TV lately - crap

what was crap ? the whole thing, some part of the design ? or too peculiar ?

Didn't they invent the bag-less vacuum cleaner?

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_cleaner#Cyclonic

They marketed a portable vacuum that doesn't use a bag or filter as the first dirt separation stage.

B&O linear tracking turntables rocked. You could dance on those things and the record would keep playing as if nothing was going on.

I discovered this as well - we bought a really expensive one thinking it was going to be great etc. the thing has the suction power of a 70 year old asthmatic

my dyson handheld is the best vacuum I've ever owned. The hand drier thing is clearly false, they work WAAAAAY better than the normal ones.

> like giving a Wookee a prostate examination

Can't stop laughing at this

Most of Dyson's products are great but commercially unviable. It might as well be their mission statement.

>I'm surprised at this - seems bizarre that it's a 'great product' but isn't commercially viable in any way?

The UK government are pushing EVs heavily but there's no charging infrastructure in place and very few can afford the £30-40K it costs to buy them :(

> there's no charging infrastructure in place

There are over 15,000 EV charging points in the UK today, which is about 2X the number of petrol stations. Ionity will have 40 350 kW fast charging stations in the UK as well.

> There are over 15,000 EV charging points in the UK today

Is a "point" a single cable, or a location with potentially several cables?

>which is about 2X the number of petrol stations

Sounds like a useless comparison when a petrol pump can serve far more vehicles per hour than a charging cable.

Not to say that GP is right, but accurate comparisons are much more convincing.

> Sounds like a useless comparison when a petrol pump can serve far more vehicles per hour than a charging cable.

It is, but you also have to consider all the charging points people have at their homes. Depending on the type of area (urban/rural) people charge 80% of the time or more at home rather than at public charging points.

Electric vehicles don't get fueled the same way as petrol vehicles. Comparing "vehicles per hour" of someone's garage or driveway to a petrol station is also a useless comparison, yet that's where most electric vehicles get charged most of the time. I think I provided a sufficient counter to "there's no charging infrastructure", however. Whether it's sufficient, or cheap enough, or reliable enough, is up for debate, but whether any infrastructure exists isn't. You also don't need a whole lot of infrastructure when only 1% of new cars are electric, and the country is so small.

Most petrol stations refuel between 4 and 8 cars every 5 minutes at peak usage. The same is not true of charging points yet.

He didn't say the infrastructure wasn't fast enough, he said it doesn't exist. My garage is where my electric vehicle refuels, and it only needs to handle 1 car per day at peak usage. Public fast chargers don't need to handle the same peak usage as petrol stations when less than 1 in 100 cars are electric. You need some infrastructure, but you don't need to build it for 2050-level usage in 2019.

It will never be true, even in a full electric world, because most electrics are charged while parked at destinations, most notably while at home.

Not really comparable. A charging point is more like a parking spot, where you park the car and charge it, you might not come back to it for days.

But if that was the problem, then how/why are other manufacturers making them viable?

I wouldn't say there is 'no infrastructure in place' - yes, it's less than the ICE infrastructure, but it's perfectly possible for many people to use an EV for their transport requirements. Not everyone, but plenty of people can do - and do.

>But if that was the problem, then how/why are other manufacturers making them viable?

Because their products are not as great as Dyson's?

I'm kinda surprised people here are focusing on this. As an example, if I make a $10K vacuum cleaner for residential use, and it's way better than all existing residential vacuum cleaners, then that would be an example of a great product that is not economically viable.

Dyson isn't saying electric cars are not economically viable. He's not even saying that good electric cars are not. He is saying that the one they had designed is really good but would need to be sold at a price that is not viable.

Of course, given that Teslas are selling very well in the UK, I do wonder...

Not much to get. People aren't willing to pay prices which will provide enough margin to cover costs. Electric cars are a tough business, especially for a company with no established auto supply chain or auto manufacturing experience.

Teslas are often touted as great products, yet there is no sign that they will ever turn a penny in cumulative cash profit.

NIO is going bankrupt.

Chevy bolts are touted as great products, but GM loses money on them and don't see profit potential for several more years. And they have the supply chain and experience.

There has yet to be a commercially viable plug in electric car. Not a shock that it is also true for Dyson.

Why is this being downvoted? I didnt say electric cars will never make money. I am stating the FACT that no company makes money on them YET.

I have 4 Dyson products, besides the hair-dryer, all of the others are bad (can't say they suck b/c that's the main job of 2 of the vacuums and they can't get it done).

I bought the dyson air purifier that's cold and hot, it's so bad...works at the same level as a USB fan...

The vacuums are loud and look futuristic but can't clean anything properly.

Any recommendations for a good vacuum are welcome!

(not sure where you're based but...) a Henry! https://www.numatic.co.uk/products.aspx?r=4&sr=1 They're cheap, they're reliable, you can use them bagged or bagless, they're basically indestructible (our chimney sweep uses a bog standard one for the actual sweeping), if anything does break you can easily repair them, they are really very good at vacuuming. Excellent product, would buy again, if I ever had to.

In the US we call those shop vacs.

They're a little harder to move around, that's why most people only use them for heavy-duty cleaning.

(And yes, I clean my fireplace with one.)

I really like how they have faces painted on them.

> Any recommendations for a good vacuum are welcome!

Any German-built Miele vacuum would beat a Dyson any day.

I think the Dyson hand dryers work really well, the ones where you stick in your hands vertically. No other design of blowing hot air around your hands actually does the job it's supposed to do.

And even the knockoffs of the Dyson design from other companies don't work as good as the Dysons, I recently had one that was build too short so I couldn't fit the whole hand in there.

But yeah the household appliances just seem to expensive.

> even the knockoffs of the Dyson design from other companies don't work as good as the Dysons

I think the Mitsubishi one - which predates the Dyson by some years, so arguably the Dyson is a knockoff of it - works pretty nicely, and it's much quieter.

We have a Shark Rocket DuoClean [1] and it seems to work pretty well. We lived in an apartment without carpet before moving to our current house, which is 3 stories with carpet.

My mom brought down her old vacuum, plus her Shark vacuum, with the idea that we could keep her old vacuum if we wanted it, but that we could try the vacuum she uses and see if we liked it better.

The old vacuum she had was super heavy and real pain to go up and down the stairs with. The Shark is really light and easy to maneuver. Seems to do a good job vacuuming too.

I remember when she first got it, I figured it was like all the other "As Seen on TV" crap she buys, but it really does seem like a nice vacuum. We've had ours for a little over two years now and are quite happy with it.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Shark-DuoClean-Ultra-Light-Lift-Away-...

I have the German made Miele for couple years. It’s pretty good.

When i wanted a new vacuum cleaner, i asked my cleaner. After all, she spends a substantial fraction of her working life using them. She recommended a Numatic Henry, so that's what i got. It's ugly, it's loud, but it's built like a tank and it could suck the bricks out of a wall.

Before the Internet everybody knew that Consumer Reports was the place to go for unbiased product recommendations. It still is. We used it for our vacuum cleaner; it costs 1/4 what the Dyson did and works better. But that was almost 10 years ago so such a recommendation would no longer be valid. Go to consumerreports.org.

Vax are cheap, have a new model every five minutes, but they're effective, and come with two batteries (which is maybe normal, but was a pleasant surprise for the price) and last for several runs (probably 2-3h total running time?) but the convenience of having one on charge and one in is great.

I have a little li-ion handheld one from shark that is decent for my needs. https://sharkhandvac.co.uk/

I use a Botvac for floor cleaning and have been happy with that, apart from the battery being a bit crap

>Any recommendations for a good vacuum are welcome!

Bought a Neato Botvac and I'm close to saying it's the single product that has improved my life the most in recent years.

I'm only cleaning a small flat but going from having to scrape dirt out of the carpet with an ineffective Dyson vacuum manually for an hour to literally pressing a button is crazy.

I have the same and then just use my old Dyson V6 to get things that need picked up immediately or for tight areas.

Mine runs automatically every night and there is rarely any dust or dirt on my floor. The amount of stuff it picks up is amazing.

Burnt through all the government grant money presumably

https://www.ft.com/content/ad078d22-f127-11e5-9f20-c3a047354...

https://www.ft.com/content/6c904cd0-eb90-11e5-bb79-230368234...

paywalled

Add Dyson to the list of failed/failing EV entrants (Faraday, Lucid, Elio, Aptera, ...) finding out the hard way that building a commercially viable car is hard regardless of what its powertrain looks like.

Building a commercially competitive production line is the problem no? Designing of the electric car is trivial I'd say compared to the (programming and usage of) robots and (training and hiring of) humans required to actually assemble the thing.

You don't design the car, you design the process to manufacture the car. The desired properties of the car itself just provides some constraints on the manufacturing process.

Re. the list. An obscure but mildly interesting one is Yo-Mobile[1]. It was a project funded by Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, of Brooklyn Nets fame. Prokhorov claimed that his engineers have developed a revolutionary supercapacitor technology, which will put any Li-Ion battery to shame. When Prokhorov later revealed that he was running for President Of Russia in 2012, a lot of people started thinking that Yo-Mobile was a publicity stunt from the very beginning. Prokhorov, rater predictably, lost the election (third place, less than 8 % of votes). Yo-Mobile was sold to the Russian Government for €1 (one Euro) and apparently abandoned later.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-Mobile

I'm pretty surprised to find that Dyson even had an electric car project. The business similarity between vacuums and vehicles seems pretty low to me. Is it just the electric motors and Li-ion batteries?

In Dyson's case they also have a fair amount of consumer focused industrial design and marketing chops and brand recognition.

But yes, batteries and motors get you a long way toward producing an electric car. At first approximation, EVs are batteries, motors, and motor speed control systems, essentially huge equivalents of electric RC cars that many played with as children.

I suspect that VW's big push into mass market electric vehicles (the ID3) probably made them reconsider, especially given VW's production scale in the mass market segment. Consider the heroics Tesla has had to undertake to ramp to the scale they are at. My guess is that they are the last "new" car maker who will make it through the finish line.

I think it’s more reasonable than Apple going into EVs. Unless they just work on the software and outsource the hardware.

From their pre-cancellation PR, that seems to have been exactly the bet, that their existing expertise in electric motors and batteries would carry over as a competitive advantage.

I mean, that feels like saying because I can cook dinner for myself I should create a food distribution company.

Toyota and Honda are, perhaps, notable exceptions to this.

"The Dyson automotive team has developed a fantastic car; ..."

Has one ever been spotted in the wild? Or even at an orchestrated photo event?

I could not find any.

Quite saddened to see this - I was hoping that Dyson might bring some interesting competition to the market. If they really did have something unique to bring in terms of motors and battery tech, I hope that gets licensed out/sold to the rest of the market.

More competition in the EV market is good - it is pleasing to see slightly more "normally priced" EVs coming to the market now rather than selling them as a premium luxury product. Perhaps Dyson was aiming for that premium pricing point (kinda how they do with their appliances), but have changed their mind now that you can get a ~150 mile range (163 WLTP) EV for £22,000 now (e.g. https://mg.co.uk/mg-zs-electric/). Would people be prepared to pay mega-prices for what people would inevitably call a glorified vacuum cleaner?

Why do companies keep thinking they can build a fucking car? Yes Tesla did it but it was a company 100% dedicated to it. Dyson has a core business already.

I’m also skeptical about Apple but at least they have one of the largest treasure chests in the world of cash so they can more afford a moon shot.

Apple has been(quietly) in the batteries business for a long time becoming number 1 user in the entire world for a long time.

An ipad, an iphone, a macbook. What do they have in common? They have batteries on it and sell in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions a year.

The most expensive thing in an electric car is batteries. The hardest thing to manufacture and get supplies for(cobalt and lithium mainly).

Apple already have lots of expertise in the area.

Dyson also sells batteries, because cordless vacuum cleaners use lots of batteries. And also have lots of experience in efficient , extremely powerful electronic motors.

Electric cars are extremely simple compared with ICEs.

I completely agree except that even with Apple having more money than God, like everyone else, they would have to compete with Tesla because Tesla already builds an awesome car. Tesla is the minimum entry point just to compete in the EV game even with Tesla opening up their patent portfolio.

So Dyson claims to have a more better digital motor AND they are exiting the EV space. If this is in fact a practical motor for cars then they should license it to one of the other players, VW, Volvo, ....

I think in-part because Apple was able to move into the smartphone business and grow so much as a result it has other companies thinking they could do the same.

Also, it could be some of these companies have existential threats that they must try something big and new or risk going out of business or being forced to sell to a rival.

Computers and iPods are a lot closer to a smartphone than to a car.

I agree with you. But I could see a consultancy creating a slideshow with bullet points showing “synergies” between products, partners and manufacturing ability enough to get an exec to green light an attempt.

Apple showed interest in buying McLaren a few years ago. I wonder if they approached any other small car manufacturers. At the very least it shows they had interest in bringing in outside talent and knowledge instead of doing it all solo. Maybe something has evolved in the background without press since then.

https://www.autoblog.com/2016/11/21/mclaren-ceo-apple-takeov...

McClaren made 4,806 (really expensive fidgety) cars in 2018. Maybe that partnership/acquisition would have been similar to what Tesla did back in 2008. Tesla's first roadster was based on a Lotus glider with batteries from Panasonic which meant they could work on motors and control systems.

But Tesla has a huge lead at this point with a factory and battery factory. With Tesla batteries, the Model 3 is 95% American made with most of that Tesla made meaning hire marginal profit margins. Anyone entering this market has to compete against that lead.

My guess is that all of these companies see it as an innovative space. Either the goal is pure prestige or to find some niche thing they can patent and sell to everyone else. They have to build the whole car because they have to.

I think of it as, "most of the people who made money during the gold rush were those who sold shovels." They're looking to find the right shovel, but need the whole process in-house to do that.

Lots of small teams make prototype/custom cars. The harder part is scaling up production to make thousands.

I think that the difficult part was the belief. I'd bet a thousand that Musk and others have clear ideas on how to automate car manufacturing a good 10x more now. Tesla went back to manual labour due to market / investor constraints. But electronics like assembly is not out of sight.

Lots of cheap money means lots of dumb projects.

You know what are the main elements of an electric car? Battery and electric motor. Dyson uses them in every product. So it's in the business more that you think. And another great skill of dyson is the design. And the CEO is one of the most famous in the world. So battery, motor and design makes a good electric car. At least in theory...

Not even close. A car is way much more than a motor and 4 wheels, specially in 2019. You need suspension, aerodynamics, an infotaiment system, seats, air conditioning, doors (dont understimate this one), a music playback system, a good display for the driver... And this in a cabin that can confort people from temperatures and noise from the outside. Making a decent car in incredibly difficult. + Safety features required for the current standards.

Dyson uses batteries but doesn't manufacture batteries. They've been researching the hell out of batteries but they don't manufacture batteries and they sure don't manufacture batteries at scale. Contrast with the Tesla gigafactory which cost $5B.

Dyson may have had something with their digital motor. It's hard to say whether that is an advantage let alone a competitive advantage. But at this point they should license that to one of the other EV players.

Comparing the battery & motor in a vacuum cleaner and a car is ridiculous.

Dyson is famous for tiny high RPM motors which are cool but irrelevant in a car (?), and the battery in it's latest vacuum has 7 cells - my Tesla has over 7000.

Seeing the explosion in e-bike popularity, maybe they should have focused on those instead. In addition to being a smaller, cheaper product with higher margins, you have a much larger market to sell to (not many countries have roads like the USA, or the electricity generation, and something like only the top 30 countries have people that can even afford to buy a car).

/. comment https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14984762&cid=59293... speculates Dyson Car was a scam intended to get outside investor to pay for their Singapore manufacturing infrastructure.

I don't understand why any of them would build an entire car instead of starting with a core part of the car better than anyone else, then expand into the other areas eventually.

Same with self-driving AI companies. Release a better-than-Tesla and better-than-human highway driving lane assist system first then move on to the harder problems.

Shocked!

This is akin to if a bicycle company tried to build cars, thinking their engineers can simply shift from bicycles to cars...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot

I'm not sure if that refutes or supports the above point... :D

And there are/were several other car brands that made bicycles before they made cars (e.g. Triumph, Rover, Minerva, Opel, ...).

Not to mention BSA, who made rifles before they made motorbikes.

The Wright Brothers had a bicycle company and then invented the airplane[1]. They didn't just make airplanes, they invented them.

I have no stake in the Dyson car, but there are other reasons that it didn't work out.

[1]: https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/wright-brothers/onlin...

On of my favorite aspects of this story is that in order to invent the propeller (one of Wright's true innovations) they had to invent and build the Lift Balance. They built the Lift Balance[1]... out of bicycle spokes and hack saw blades[2]!

[1]: https://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/balance.html [2]: http://aerologic.com/aiaa/AIAA-02-11-2006.pdf

Though the Wright Bros weren't competing with existing entrenched aircraft manufacturers in the way Dyson would be competing with Tesla et al.

I get that there are examples of companies that moved from bicycles to cars (or planes), but I doubt there are recent examples. It is much harder to enter the mature automotive market, which is what makes Tesla's accomplishments extraordinary.

AFAIK all mass-market automakers in the US and Europe trace their history to automotive startups in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and Japan and Korea's automakers all formed in the mid 20th century.

I guess China probably has the newest automaker startups outside of Tesla, but they don't have much volume outside of their domestic markets.

Except Dyson's expertise is electric motors and aerodynamics. This is arguably somewhat transferable to electric cars.

I can believe that they designed a nice product, but it seems to me that car manufacture is very economically hostile to new entrants. The only place where new entrants typically succeed is super-cars, where money is no object.

Taking Tesla as example, they had a successful strategy of starting with the high-end Roadster, then developing their business until they could make the Model S then Model 3 economically viable.

I know, Wright?

(Sorry, not comparable but I had to make the pun.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Darracq

went from cycling to electric cars

By some accounts, Honda Motor Company:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda

I was about to mention that in 2007, many of the top professional downhill mounter bikers were riding Honda bikes at the world cup. I don't even think that the bikes weren't actually for sale to the public.

I'm trying to square this with the rise of the money no object car. Is there really not 1000? People will to spend £2m for this when Bugatti seems to have no problems doing the same.

I'm pretty sure if they ever made electric car, it would run on gas, just like "fanless" fan.

You just know there's a joke about making the entire car out of plastic in here...

Unsurprising. Dyson can barely make vacuum cleaners anymore.

I remember a while back they tried to make a washing machine, totally over engineered it with a drum spinning both ways at once so it would finish the cycle quicker. The downside? It was 6 inches or so deeper than other machines and stuck right out into your kitchen. No thanks.

Prob cost them 200billion in estimate

This sucks!

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