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FORTUNE.COM // NOVEMBER 2019
Dyson’s inability to produce a profitable automobile speaks
volumes about the current perilous state of the electric vehicle
industry, in which companies like Elon Musk’s Tesla and Chinese
startup Nio are burning through billions of dollars annually with
no sign of black ink on the horizon. The story of his audacious but
ultimately failed project also says much about Dyson, the rare
executive who can combine blue-sky dreaming with steely-eyed
financial discipline. At a time when every company speaks about
innovation and disruption, Dyson’s decision to kill his electric car
is a case study in the delicate balancing act of embracing ingenu-
ity while keeping an eye on profits.
I
MPROBABLE though it seems in retrospect, there were
good reasons for James Dyson to attempt to make an
all-electric automobile. Electrification presented a once-
in-a-century opportunity in the auto industry, one that
Dyson was not alone in spotting. Electric powertrains require
only about 20 moving parts compared with more than 2,000
for cars with internal combustion engines—a fact that theoreti-
cally lowers barriers to entry. What’s more, Tesla had caught the
global automotive industry sleeping on EVs, and several years
ago, it looked as if there was room for more entrants. Apple was
rumored to be working on a car, for example, as was Google.
At 72, the British inventor
has been innovating his whole
adult life. His contraptions span
from gardening to hair styling.INVENTOR
Dyson’s first hit came in 1974, a redesigned
wheelbarrow that replaced the typical narrow rub-
ber wheel with a plastic sphere that resisted sink-
ing into muddy ground. He called it the Ballbarrow.
Dyson then turned his attention to the bagless
vacuum. It took a decade and 5,127 prototypes to
perfect his design for the product that ultimately
would make his name and fortune.ENVIRONMENTALIST
Dyson has been worked up about pollution for
decades, but not out of concern for global warm-
ing. He loathed the exhaust spewed into the air by
diesel-burning engines popular in Europe. “I hated
the smell,” he says. “I hated the black smoke.”
He developed a filter to capture diesel particu-
lates but couldn’t persuade trucking companies
to buy it. His dislike of fossil-fuel burning engines
persisted.LANDOWNER, PHILANTHROPIST, PATRIOT
Aside from his day job, Dyson runs a profitable
agriculture business. He owns more farmland
than anyone else in the U.K., including Queen
Elizabeth II.
His James Dyson Foundation runs an annual
award program in 27 countries, in search of the
most innovative inventions. To train more U.K.
engineers, he founded the James Dyson Institute,
which offers undergraduates free engineering
degrees and work experience.
He also likes to display the work of other British
inventors on the grounds of his company’s corpo-
rate campus in rural Wiltshire, 100 miles west of
London. A Brexit supporter, Dyson had critics who
chafed at his plans to relocate HQ to Singapore.SECRET KEEPER
Dyson is a 14,000-person company whose para-
noia for protecting corporate secrets, dating back
to piracy of the Ballbarrow’s design, rivals Apple’s.
It is an active litigant on its patent portfolio, hav-
ing tussled with the likes of Hoover and Samsung.
Employees generally operate on a “need to know”
basis and are expected not to discuss projects out-
side their teams, including in communal cafeterias.