- Dyson urges petrol car ban by 2030
- Patents reveal design for off-road electric vehicle
- Some costs have overrun but Dyson says it will stick to £2.5bn plan
- Sceptics believe 2021delivery target is unrealistic
James Dyson has lobbied Theresa May to bring forward to 2030 her planned ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars, as the entrepreneur unveils the first patents for his own range of electric vehicles. “Theresa May’s people came to see me, and I suggested they think about 2030, because [2040] seems to be madness,” he told the Financial Times in an interview.
The government announced in 2017 that it planned to phase out the sale of new petrol or diesel vehicles that do not use hybrid technology by 2040. Sir James also spoke to the prime minister directly during a trip to India to urge her to choose an earlier date, according to a person close to him. “My own amateur view of the electric-car market is that it has been underestimated,” Sir James said. “I believe it’s driven not so much by subsidies as by genuine desire of the public to have silent and non-polluting vehicles.”
Dyson intends to release the first in a suite of vehicles by 2021, leaping into the increasingly crowded electric-car market, where Elon Musk’s Tesla is battling Chinese start-ups, such as NIO and Eyton, as well as established carmakers. A successful launch would be a personal victory for Sir James, whose early efforts to sell his vacuum technology to carmakers to use as exhaust filters were rejected.
His group has bet its business on the project, setting aside £2.5bn to invest in the venture and relocating its corporate headquarters from the UK to Singapore, where the car is to be manufactured. The first patents, filed 18 months ago but made public for the first time on Thursday, show that an off-road vehicle is in Dyson’s planned line-up, using an array of design features to eke out the longest possible range from a single battery charge.