Dyson will build its first electric car in Singapore

Dyson, which you currently know from making vacuum cleaners, will build its new electric car in Singapore. That’s today’s announcement, which comes just over two months after Dyson said it would develop the vehicle on a purpose-built test track in Wiltshire.

Details of the plan are still reasonably scarce, but according to the Financial Times, Dyson will spend £2bn developing battery technology and car construction. Apparently the UK had been mooted as a factory location, but Dyson went with Singapore because it’s already a company manufacturing hotspot and it’s closer to ‘customers and production hubs’.

According to the FT, Dyson is bullish that Brexit isn’t to blame for taking the EV’s manufacture overseas. However, it has been pointed out that Singapore already has lucrative trade agreements with China and a pending deal with the EU that the UK, needless to say, does not.

It’s expected the new factory will be built by 2020 and the car is set to arrive in 2021, as the first of a fleet of Dyson EVs. By then, there’ll be a lot more than the likes of the Jaguar I-Pace and Audi e-tron to content with. Who knows, maybe Tesla will have even managed to build a Model 3 in right-hand drive?