Yes and no is the answer. As you may well know James Dyson, the founder of the bagless vacuum cleaner company that bears his name, announced plans to develop an electric car. The Dyson company can easily afford to develop such a vehicle, it is worth billions and has billions to spare and plow into such projects. But is the Dyson electric car a vanity project for its visionary founder? Yes and no is the answer again. Dyson has no plans to emulate Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors, rather a Dyson electric car will be a low volume venture. Nevertheless, Dyson has committed £2bn GBP and a team of 400 people plucked from the existing car industry and beyond, so this is a very expensive vanity project right? Yes and no. Work began in 2015, Dyson plans to launch an electric car in 2020. The car may well be limited in numbers, in other words, a luxury electric car. That means there will be no return on investment. So how do you claw back £2bn in investment? By developing component technology that can be sold into the growing electric car industry. If Dyson can develop a battery cell that is more powerful and more efficient than is currently available it will wipe the floor with rivals and that £2bn investment will easily be returned back into Dyson’s private off-shore bank in the Cayman Islands. So what the Dyson electric car will be is, a technology demonstration in a similar vein that the original Bugatti Veyron was to VW. The money will not be in selling electric cars more so in the selling of technology components to the wider electric car industry.