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The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

dyson.co.uk

141–147 of 147 posts

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#141
Understandable that they don't want to take this on, it's a massive undertaking beyond a lot of consumer products.

I do wish they could contract out some design or other manufacturers would consult with them. Reducing distraction with physical buttons on a steering wheel is so much more thoughtful than tossing in a touchscreen and pushing everything to software (I realize cars have some controls on the steering wheel, but it's not enough).

Every time I see a modern car I'm kind of shocked by how distracting the interior is. At least voice interfaces have improved somewhat.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kills me is that every feature you mention can be done without needing an app, an lcd, or the cloud, and the same thing applies to electric cars. How much cheaper would an electric car like a tesla be if it didn't have autopilot, electronic keys, and LCDs everywhere? How much more secure would it be without an e-key to unlock it? I hope when I'm ready to buy an electric car I can find something like that.

I’m willing to bet the LCD screens and fancy hardware are a small part of the vehicle cost, esp. when compared to the batteries. All software is expensive up front but near zero cost to deploy to each additional car. At some number of cars sold the software costs becomes a rounding error.

Car manufacturer tries to reduce penny costs for each parts literally. Good SoC/LCD are $$$.

Meanwhile, software is costs at once so traditional car manufactures uses cheaper chip and force programmers to write efficient code.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things like app connectivity are after thoughts and not core to their products. Good! God help us the day something like a fan or a vacuum cleaner needs "app connectivity".

A good example of intelligent appliances would be like my Samsung washing machine... It had an error, so I called their support line. They asked me to hold down two buttons simultaneously, then put my phone near the door. It let out a 10s or so digital song, the kind that modems did in the 90s - that gave them an entire diagnostic, age, model etc, and they sent someone around as they knew I couldn't fix it. Pretty am…

I can see that being useful if the app said, "Replace O-ring AE-35. Press ORDER to order this part, INSTRUCTIONS for service information and diagrams, or SERVICE to schedule a service appointment."

But my guess is that pretty much every possible outcome of the diagnostic process is "Make sure an adult is home between noon and 6 PM next Tuesday to let the repair technician in." It's safe to say that empowering the consumer is pretty far down the list at Samsung's R&D department.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#144
post #2

Sadly, will not go to production: “We never normally show our aborted projects, however, it felt right to give a glimpse of the Dyson car to show what the team achieved.” https://twitter.com/Dyson/status/1268144470589165570

They claim their batteries are very good so they might end up licensing them to battery manufacturers.

This seems to me to be becoming the standard failed car startup “face save” excuse. Couldn’t make a car, but by George we can sell some slightly differently shaped batteries we patented!

I’ll believe it when we see it.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I, too, am using an ancient washing machine in my home, it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. New washing machines use far less water and electricity than their older counterparts. They also remove more water during their spin cycle, reducing the amount of drying necessary. And if your dryer uses natural gas (as mine does), a newer washing machine will reduce your use of natural gas as well.

What kills me is that every feature you mention can be done without needing an app, an lcd, or the cloud, and the same thing applies to electric cars. How much cheaper would an electric car like a tesla be if it didn't have autopilot, electronic keys, and LCDs everywhere? How much more secure would it be without an e-key to unlock it? I hope when I'm ready to buy an electric car I can find something like that.

I believe the Tesla Models 3 and Y's LCD screens were a cost cutting measure -- one LCD replaces dozens of smaller screens, switches, buttons, and indicators, as well as the PCBs and metal chassis to support them and the molded plastic to hide the PCBs and chassis.

It's probably also less engineering effort to put a set of controls on the screen than to design the corresponding physical controls.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kills me is that every feature you mention can be done without needing an app, an lcd, or the cloud, and the same thing applies to electric cars. How much cheaper would an electric car like a tesla be if it didn't have autopilot, electronic keys, and LCDs everywhere? How much more secure would it be without an e-key to unlock it? I hope when I'm ready to buy an electric car I can find something like that.

I’m willing to bet the LCD screens and fancy hardware are a small part of the vehicle cost, esp. when compared to the batteries. All software is expensive up front but near zero cost to deploy to each additional car. At some number of cars sold the software costs becomes a rounding error.

The physical hardware might be a drop in the ocean on a $100,000 car, but the software engineering for all the features they enable cannot be cheap.

Re: The Dyson Battery Electric Vehicle

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subtitle on that last one is "Engineering firm has been told by the government that their services are no longer required" - not sure why that is Dyson's fault!

Of course there is more to the story. But think of it as "Sir, you need to leave this establishment" as merely the punchline to the tale.

You're just making things up.
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