Dyson Shares New Photos and Videos of Its Canceled Electric SUV (theverge.com) 60
Dyson has revealed new photos and information about their failed electric SUV, which the company canceled last October due to high costs. The Verge reports: In a new blog post on his company's website, Dyson shows off some of the first images and videos of the real prototype it made before the project was killed last October, as well as a few more computer renderings. He describes the SUV as "a radical car which was loaded with technology," and says his company "solved lots of problems that are traditionally associated with electric vehicles," though the project was ultimately abandoned for not being "commercially viable." Missing from the post is any substantive explanation of what those problems were, though, or how the company was going to solve them. Dyson touts a "spoke, integrated and highly efficient Electric Drive Unit (EDU) comprising Dyson digital electric motor, single speed transmission and state of the art power inverter," though there's no explanation about what sets those technologies apart from the ones developed by other companies in the electric vehicle space.
Other listed design benefits (like a flexible battery pack design, improved interior space, longer wheelbase) and features (like a heads-up display or handle-free doors) are also far from unique. And while Autocar reports that the SUV was supposed to offer somewhere around 600 miles of range using a 150kWh battery, Dyson never got close enough to put that claim to the test. One of the few standout parts of the SUV is the steering wheel, which looks more like a video game controller than anything.
Other listed design benefits (like a flexible battery pack design, improved interior space, longer wheelbase) and features (like a heads-up display or handle-free doors) are also far from unique. And while Autocar reports that the SUV was supposed to offer somewhere around 600 miles of range using a 150kWh battery, Dyson never got close enough to put that claim to the test. One of the few standout parts of the SUV is the steering wheel, which looks more like a video game controller than anything.
So, to be clear, less than vaporware (Score:4, Insightful)
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Vaporware is about vanishing with the money.
Re: So, to be clear, less than vaporware (Score:1)
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Vapour ware is also about creating an identity, the chief proponent of this Google, all those announcements and no products, all advertising to make them seem more that just an internet search engine, to pump up the share price, so early investors can really, really, cash it before everyone realises they are just an internet search engine.
It is about stealing money from new investors who pay more for that share than it is worth based upon that hype, whilst insiders who know it is all hype, sell their shares
Re: So, to be clear, less than vaporware (Score:1)
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In a way they do profit by search but more research of their targeted advertisers, those buying the ads. To target them with ads about how great google is and of course target them with their own ads, to create the impression their ads are flooding the internet rather than being buried in a flood of other ads google is running. Providing the end users with quality search results is no longer a priority, pretty invasive corporate espionage through data mining (investment strategies) and creation of marketing
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the focus now is readily change able batteries, 2 minute swap over with every thing that implies,
Um, no. The experiments with battery swapping (Tesla, Renault) all failed. Battery swapping has several problems:
1. it requires batteries to be of a standard shape, creating big constraints on vehicle design.
2. initial experimens were companyspecific, so Tesla batteries could only be swapped at Tesla stations. This meant the pool of users for each station was too small. Standardization between competitors will be difficult.
It's still a Dyson... (Score:5, Funny)
So to be clear, this is less than vaporware.
Maybe but it was made by Dyson so it clearly sucked badly.
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"Maybe but it was made by Dyson so it clearly sucked badly."
It may have sucked, but it did so without the need for pesky filters :-)
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I do wonder about his claims for the battery and drivetrain though. If they were as fantastic as he claimed then surely he would be selling the technology to others or at least applying for some patents.
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No joke: (Score:1)
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To be fair, dependent on context, sucking is not even frequently a poor outcome.
If you'd like to suck less, there are steps you can take... try these for 30 days
1)sleep 8+ hrs
2)drink 2 litres of water per day
3)get sunlight daily
4)consume no sugar
5)read for an hour each day
6)workout 4x a week
7)Capture someone, cut their face off, and sew it onto yours
8)Meditate 15 minutes a day
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Re: No joke: (Score:1)
Re: No joke: (Score:1)
Re: No joke: (Score:2)
There does seem to be some correlation between the two ...
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Why do manufacturers try to insist on increasing wheel size? At the point Dyson was at it looks like a pimp-mobile. Low profile tires are great for performance, but comfort suffers. Manufacturers are going too far now. To get the upper trim level on my current car it only could be configured with the larger diameter wheels with the firm ride, they look good though but I miss my 70's car that would glide and float over the bumps, mpg(e) be damned, I want comfort
Re: No joke: (Score:1)
Why do manufacturers try to insist on increasing wheel size?
Several reasons: Looks.
It allows larger brake discs.
They're subsidized by tire manufacturers.
Of course, it increases unsprung weight and rotational mass.
Re: No joke: (Score:1)
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Why do manufacturers try to insist on increasing wheel size?
Several reasons: Looks.
It allows larger brake discs.
They're subsidized by tire manufacturers.
Of course, it increases unsprung weight and rotational mass.
I used to own one of the fabulous FD Mazda RX-7 rotary cars. They came stock with 16 inch rims. When I put 18's on it, the car was actually slower to accelerate. I thought it was my imagination, till a friend and myself (who had the identical car) ran side-by-side comparisons.
Turns out that both mine and his 18 inch rims threw the weight further out, which increased rotational inertia, and made the car accelerate slower.
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Are you sure that was just inertia? Larger wheels usually have a larger circumference tire, so you're effectively lengthening the final drive ratio, which reduces torque at the wheels.
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Re: No joke: (Score:1)
It's not even close to being close.
It's /. so of course I didn't read the article (Score:2)
or watching any videos, I need to know how many cupholders did it have?
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Photo of my time machine (Score:2)
We've fallen a long way as an industrial society when the best companies can do is post photos of their products that failed.
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Re: Photo of my time machine (Score:1)
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The British built my '66 Sunbeam Alpine, which still runs (my daughter's driving it now). So I do know they're capable.
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Not bad looking (Score:3)
Looks like a cross between a new land rover and a station wagon.
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It seems quite conventional really. The basic shape is standard SUV, perhaps with a slightly shallower angle for the windscreen to improve aerodynamics. Everything else we have seen before, e.g. the little air inlets in front of the wheels are common on that shape SUV as it reduces drag from the wheels. Cars like the Kona have them, as well as a very similar body shape, narrow headlights etc.
The charge port position is standard for luxury EVs too, e.g. the Audi Turd or the Porsche Taycan. It's a bit of a da
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Well it's not going anywhere, so it is definitely a stationary wagon.
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It only seems to do it in Sport Mode, but I want that mode to give me max quickness, not have intermittent pauses in acceleration for idiots that think shifting gears (in an automatic) is the ultimate sport experience.
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An ignorant comment like this from an AC? Expected SuperKendall honestly.
SINGLE SPEED transmission, which are common in EVs and do not "thrown 30-50% efficiency out the window", idiot.
Direct drive causes other problems. It's a car, there is more than one problem to solve.
Trust in the batteries (Score:2)
I've owned a few of the hand-held battery powered stick Dysons. The few that I've had have had shitty batteries, or shitty battery management. Without fail, the batteries fail after two years. I generally scavenge second-hand or aftermarket batteries, or replacement cells.
This very well might be a design "feature" to get me to buy new batteries.
Which leads me to my question: Would I buy a vehicle from this company that has this kind of mentality?
Re: Trust in the batteries (Score:2)
Why would I buy anything from a firm that made emptying the vacuum clear a dust nightmare that invariably involves vacuuming up the resultant mess, when in the past all I had to do was remove a paper bag and put in the bin. They also popularised the high speed germ blasters aka. hand dryers. One has to wonder how many people have caught COVID-19 and died as a result. Dyson is a tax dodging twat.
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Agree 100% percent with everything you've said.
I'll re-phrase my initial post: My wife continues to buy the hand-held Dysons, which I have to keep going every time the batteries break.
Reason for cancelling never made sense.... (Score:2)
He gave the reason for cancelling as something along the lines of, I'd have to sell each one for three million pounds...
Well isn't that how all cars work? I theory to make the R&D back the first few would have to sell for millions of dollars (or pounds), but that cost is averaged out after the whole run....
Surely there was no way that even scaling up production each car would have to sell for north of a million pounds to make money ever?
Really too bad as I liked the design but it just goes to show it's
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Have to agree with you here. Doesn't quite add up. Surely *before* you start designing a car, you go and visit Sandy Munro, cost up the car and work out whether it's even worth designing and building a prototype?
Why would you sink half a billion dollars into designing a car that you have no idea how much you could sell it for, and have no idea how much it might cost to manufacture
Maybe they did it purely to build their IP portfolio? Or maybe this was purely a massive and expensive PR exercise to stay in
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Maybe they did it purely to build their IP portfolio? Or maybe this was purely a massive and expensive PR exercise to stay in the news when they have no other new products coming out?
I think we may have a winner here. Dyson has history with patents and some of their electric motor knowledge might apply to cars but you would want to test it to check for any special tricks needed. Expect to see a bunch of patent trolling in a few years.
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Maybe the reason was so when they do go licensing patents, they can say they were in the automotive industry, so that their patents apply to automotive applications. A motor patent for a vacuum is likely not going to hold up against a car, but I bet they filed derivative work applying those same patents to cars now.
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Your model requires omnipotence and premonition on what technology will work and how much it will cost on emerging technologies. They didn’t just straight copy a design; there was some considerable R&D there. The existing auto makers have a budget for R&D but it is assumed that some of that research will not make it to a product any time soon. Separately, they are making small changes to existing products to make sales.
For example new cars may have multiple cameras. Ford and Toyota didn’
Good (Score:2)
Patents (Score:2)
How about sharing some of the IP instead? That would be nice for the world, some use could come of it.
Dieselgate killed it? Sounds like an excuse. (Score:2)
Tesla makes money on EV's without having to sell ICE cars to make profit to offset loses on EV's. Yes Tesla also sells their carbon credits to ICE manufactures, as could Dyson. Maybe blaming dieselgate was just something a PR firm came up with?
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Dumbest idea ever (Score:3)
If they wanted into this industry they should have worked with manufacturers to produce branded air filtration systems for cars. After all, cars often have branded sound systems by BOSE, Harman Kardon or whatever. This is an obvious way into the industry and one that should be very high profile and profitable given how garbage the ventilation systems in most cars actually are.
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Dyson's biggest innovation was developing it's "digital motor", which is what gives its vacuum cleaners such high suction rates at relatively low power levels. They used to be quite a way ahead on that front, although lately other manufacturers like Xiaomi have caught up.
Anyway, their motors are pretty good at small scale. If they could get them to work at larger scale they could potentially be good for cars too.
They also claimed to have some ridiculous battery technology, but have not demonstrated it so wh
$500M is not enough (Score:2)
it looks like they're finding out what a bottomless pit designing a car can be. In the 1980s, Volvo spent $1.5B on the Volvo 850, its new engines and a new manufacturing plant. And that was mostly an evolutionary design, from a well-established manufacturer.
Dyson had to develop everything from scratch: the car, drivetrain, electronics and the manufacturing process.
so this is "development" in 2020? (Score:2)
Imagine something really cool.
Build a model.
Come up with a bunch of flashy bells and whistles, design them, and glue them to your model so it looks cool.
When the shady AF company developing the "groundbreaking" critical tech in which your design is fundamentally based turns out to be a lie, close project.
Insist you were "this close" to producing imaginary product anyway.
By that logic, I pretty much built an Ftl spacecraft in my backyard when I was 10.