Dyson, famous for their innovative home appliances, have announced that they have invested £200 million in track testing facilities at its UK research centre.
The company, who produced the bagless vacuum cleaner, announced in September 2017 that they had secretly been developing an electric car, with the aim of dominating the market with a ‘radical, upmarket, high-tech and cutting edge’ vehicle.
“We will lead the development for high value jobs in the UK. These cars will be British exports. The know-how and development is here,” said founder Sir James Dyson last year.
Dyson are converting a former World War 2 base, which includes a 10-mile track which will be used to test the vehicles. The Wiltshire base is expected to create an additional 300 jobs for automotive engineers, and the company’s workforce could be doubled to 8,000.
Dyson chief executive officer Jim Rowan said: “Our growing automotive team is now working from Dyson’s state-of-the-art hangars at Hullavington Airfield.
“It will quickly become a world-class vehicle testing campus where we hope to invest £200m, creating more high-skilled jobs for Britain.
“We are now firmly focused on the next stage of our automotive project strengthening our credentials as a global research and development organisation.”
Whilst the proposed cars will be designed and developed in the UK, it’s expected that the final assembly of the vehicles will be completed in South East Asia.