LONDON — Dyson Ltd., famous for making vacuum cleaners, picked Singapore to manufacture its first electric car.
The closely held British manufacturer, also known for hand dryers and air purifiers, said Tuesday it will complete the factory by 2020 and stuck to a goal of rolling out its first model by 2021 as part of a 2 billion pound ($2.6 billion) effort to expand into automobiles.
The choice of Singapore — which doesn’t have a single car-manufacturing plant and is one of the costliest places in the world to buy an automobile — comes as Tesla Inc. zeroes in on establishing a factory in China. The decision is a victory for the city state, home to the planet’s second-largest container port and a manufacturing hub for high-technology products such as Rolls-Royce aircraft engines.
Dyson is among new contenders entering the race to make electric vehicles. Besides Tesla, Dyson will compete with global giants such as Daimler AG, Volkswagen AG and General Motors that are all charging ahead with EV plans.
Singapore, with fewer than 6 million people, is a minor market itself but has technology talent and strong intellectual-property protections. Dyson already has a manufacturing hub in Singapore that focuses on digital motors, with the company employing about 1,100 people in the region.
Singapore also has a free trade agreement with China, the world’s largest market for electric cars. While Tesla last week took a step toward building an auto plant in Shanghai, Dyson’s founder, James Dyson, has complained about intellectual-property theft in China.
China will remain the top electric-vehicle market at least until 2040, when more than half of all new-car sales and a third of the planet’s fleet — equal to 559 million automobiles — will be electric, according to a forecast by Bloomberg NEF. James Dyson said the company’s “center of gravity” has tilted toward Asia, which last year generated almost three quarters of revenue growth.
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