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The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

dyson.co.uk

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Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#31

Post by andrewtbham »

stupidcar wrote: post #22
objclxt wrote: post #8

> Electric cars are considerably more expensive to make and manufacturers are making big losses on the sale of each car. This is rather disingenuous. The Model 3 was one of the most popular new cars sold in the UK last year, Tesla isn’t losing money on those sales. You can’t do a market analysis that ignores the main competitor. If I had to hazard a guess, the real reason James Dyson pulled the plug is a) EV developm…

Tesla has certainly lost money on every sale to date when you consider what they have spent designing the cars and creating the capacity to mass produce them. They may now have unit costs that will allow them to eventually recoup that money and make a profit, but that doesn't just mean you can disregard all the initial capital.

That's not the way you consider manufacturing and accounting. You consider gross margins. You don't disregard the initial capital, you consider depreciation.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#33

Post by adwww »

barbegal wrote: post #23

It seems they really got out of their depth with this project. There are a lot of photos and videos of aesthetic things that (arguably) Dyson is good at such as the steering wheel user interface, the shaping of the wheel rims and the colour palettes for the paint job. But there is very little evidence of hard engineering, only one grainy video of the prototype car actually running (the other videos appearing to be th…

They also struggle with the culture of software.

From what I've heard from employees, software is looked down on by management and is not really something they 'get'. Things like app connectivity are after thoughts and not core to their products.

A good chunk of what makes a Tesla unique is the radically different software and digital user experience. Dyson (the company) are not ready to embrace the fast moving culture that enables that.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#34

Post by bsanr2 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #21
mikekchar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the comment is disingenuous, however, I believe the problem for Dyson was that the car he wanted to make was just too expensive. It's not necessarily the case that all electric vehicles are too expensive (and clearly when you look at the EVs in SE Asia, there are some pretty cheap cars). I'd be surprised if he didn't already anticipate the upfront costs. I think it's more that having made the prototype,…

> he realised he couldn't make a product that will disrupt the market at a reasonable price Dyson's whole lifelong strategy is to disrupt the product and the price. When his vacuum cleaner came out the price was astronomically expensive. People were dumfounded - who would pay so much? But the product was better and people accepted the new price. It still seems high today but it was so successful it somewhat permanent…

The crucial difference between those markets and the auto market is that consumers already have an idea of the value of autos across the range of prices. Even a teenager tooling around in a used Civic could tell you why his car cost $4000 and why a Lambo is 6 figures. Meanwhile, while I'm sure there were luxury or industrial vacuums, fans, etc., before Dyson's, most couldn't tell you their cost, nor what features justified that cost, to Dyson's advantage. With cars, though, he can't just say, "These are the features you'll get, and this is what I'll sell it to you for," because people will just point to other, similarly-priced cars and say, "How come it doesn't have [premium feature] like this one?".

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#35

Post by clouddrover »

barbegal wrote: post #23

It seems they really got out of their depth with this project. There are a lot of photos and videos of aesthetic things that (arguably) Dyson is good at such as the steering wheel user interface, the shaping of the wheel rims and the colour palettes for the paint job. But there is very little evidence of hard engineering, only one grainy video of the prototype car actually running (the other videos appearing to be th…

Dyson should have gone with another manufacturer's EV platform for their first few cars, like Volkswagen's MEB platform:

https://jalopnik.com/volkswagen-wants-other-automakers-to-us...

https://jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-engineering-behind-vws-...

It wouldn't have been a Dyson from the ground up but it would have gotten their EV effort started at the lowest cost and they could have worked on their own in-house designs in the meantime.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#36

Post by kinnth »

barbegal wrote: post #23

It seems they really got out of their depth with this project. There are a lot of photos and videos of aesthetic things that (arguably) Dyson is good at such as the steering wheel user interface, the shaping of the wheel rims and the colour palettes for the paint job. But there is very little evidence of hard engineering, only one grainy video of the prototype car actually running (the other videos appearing to be th…

I'm not sure electric cars are as deep as motor driven cars and obviously Dyson had the manufacturing of electric motors down to a fine art. I am pretty gutted they couldn't get an economy of scale to make it work, even if they had sold 100 at 250k a pop I think it might have grown and they might have followed the tesla model from luxury down to affordability.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#38

Post by seanalltogether »

chrisseaton wrote: post #21
mikekchar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the comment is disingenuous, however, I believe the problem for Dyson was that the car he wanted to make was just too expensive. It's not necessarily the case that all electric vehicles are too expensive (and clearly when you look at the EVs in SE Asia, there are some pretty cheap cars). I'd be surprised if he didn't already anticipate the upfront costs. I think it's more that having made the prototype,…

> he realised he couldn't make a product that will disrupt the market at a reasonable price Dyson's whole lifelong strategy is to disrupt the product and the price. When his vacuum cleaner came out the price was astronomically expensive. People were dumfounded - who would pay so much? But the product was better and people accepted the new price. It still seems high today but it was so successful it somewhat permanent…

Maybe the problem is that cars can't be compared to household appliances when it comes to consumer behavior. Spending more for an appliance that you believe will last longer and be more powerful then a cheaper variation might feel like a smart buy. There are so many more variables when buying a car however.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#40

Post by hodder »

andrewtbham wrote: post #31
stupidcar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has certainly lost money on every sale to date when you consider what they have spent designing the cars and creating the capacity to mass produce them. They may now have unit costs that will allow them to eventually recoup that money and make a profit, but that doesn't just mean you can disregard all the initial capital.

That's not the way you consider manufacturing and accounting. You consider gross margins. You don't disregard the initial capital, you consider depreciation.

Right, but while Tesla has positive gross margins, they have never turned an annual profit (Positive GAAP Net Income).
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