Dyson might be building electric car, joining Apple and Google in looking to make vehicles of the future

The company invested in a big battery firm earlier this year – and could be about to putting its power bricks into cars, says its boss

Imperial College students show off prototypes to James Dyson (Dyson)

Dyson might be working on a car, and won’t rule out other major new designs, according to its boss.

The company is “ruling nothing out” and might look to put its technology into a range of different uses, big and small, CEO Max Conze has said.

Dyson, most famous for its vacuum cleaners, might seem a strange fit for a car. But an increasing number of companies – including Google and Apple – are looking at making cars, as people move towards electric-powered and automatically-driving vehicles.

The technology companies hope that they turn their computers into cars faster than the car makers can turn start making driving technology.

Dyson made reference to Apple, which has been widely rumoured to be working on the technology.

Asked whether Dyson might join those companies – or Tesla, which has already built a business on its long-lasting car batteries – its boss said that it could already be exploring the possibility.

“We are ruling nothing out,” Conze said. “Like our friends in Cupertino we are also unhealthily obsessive when it comes to taking apart our products to make them better.”

Earlier this year, Dyson bought part of a battery company called Sakti3, which hopes to double the life of batteries of the future. Dyson says that it plans to use those in its hand-held vacuums – but didn’t rule out putting them into electric cars, too.

“But Sakti3 has the best remit to deliver breakthrough technology into other industries though I could not comment on what they are,” Conze said. “If you do what we do and invent disruptive technologies and have thousands of engineers working on these projects for as long as 15 years, then you want to keep that work in the lab” until it’s ready.