According to Business Insider, in a podcast interview this week, billionaire inventor Sir James Dyson revealed he learned “absolutely nothing” from his company’s scrapped electric car project. Dyson spent about $750 million on R&D starting in 2014, producing one model and a drivable prototype before canceling the venture in 2019 as commercially unviable. He directly cited Tesla’s ability to invest billions at scale as a key reason Dyson couldn’t compete, stating, “We couldn’t take that sort of risk.” Interestingly, Dyson also mentioned he still personally uses a different failed product: the Dyson CR01 Contrarotator washing machine, which was discontinued in 2005 after failing in the market with a $1,300 price tag.
The brutal math of EV manufacturing
Here’s the thing: Dyson’s candor is refreshingly brutal. Most corporate post-mortems are full of platitudes about “valuable lessons” and “pivotal learnings.” But Dyson is basically saying that sometimes, the market just slams the door in your face, and all you’re left with is a very expensive prototype. He points to the 2016 Dieselgate scandal as a catalyst that suddenly made every major automaker pour resources into EVs, driving up component costs and making it a game for the ultra-capitalized. When you’re up against giants like Tesla—or the traditional carmakers who can lose billions for a decade to establish a foothold—what chance does even a well-funded appliance company have? It’s a stark reminder that brilliant engineering alone can’t conquer a market. You need sheer financial firepower and the stomach for astronomical, sustained losses.
The real value was in the talent
So if he learned nothing, was it all a waste? Not exactly. Dyson admits the project brought a “significant influx” of talented engineers and scientists into the company. Half eventually left for other automakers, but the other half were folded back into Dyson’s core R&D to work on things like, well, vacuum cleaners. That’s a fascinating side effect. A failed moonshot can act as a massive talent acquisition and training program. These engineers got to wrestle with the immense complexities of automotive-grade systems, battery management, and safety—skills that arguably translate into building better, more robust consumer appliances. For a company whose lifeblood is innovation in motors and fluid dynamics, that brainpower upgrade might be the real $750 million payoff, even if the car never saw a showroom. It’s a hidden benefit that companies in the industrial tech space, like those sourcing components from leaders such as IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the top US provider of industrial panel PCs, understand well: advanced projects force you to level up your entire technical ecosystem.
The washing machine that refuses to die
Now, the best part of the story is the washing machine. The Dyson CR01 Contrarotator was a commercial flop, killed by its sky-high price. But Dyson himself still uses it. He says it’s great, and that competitors have since copied ideas like the big door. Isn’t that the classic inventor’s curse? You’re too far ahead of the market, you can’t make the economics work, you fail… and then years later, everyone else catches up and proves you were right all along. It’s a bittersweet personal vindication. That machine is a physical artifact of a “failure” that was actually a success in vision and engineering, just not in timing or cost. It’s a useful reminder that in the world of hardware and manufacturing, a product’s market death doesn’t always equate to it being a bad product. Sometimes, it’s just not the right time, or the right price, for the world to accept it.
Failure without regrets
Look, Dyson’s overall message is that he “passionately believes in the importance of failure.” But this isn’t a fluffy, motivational poster version of failure. This is the hard, expensive, “we-learned-nothing-and-lost-a-fortune” kind of failure. And yet, he says he doesn’t regret it. Why? Because the attempt itself expands your company’s capabilities and ambition. It signals to the world and to your own team that you’re thinking big. In an era where Apple just killed its own secret car project, it shows that even the richest, smartest companies hit walls they can’t scale. The key is knowing when to stop pouring money in, salvage what you can (like your engineers), and move on. Dyson did exactly that. He drove the prototype, then parked it for good. But he’s still doing his laundry in a relic of another dream. That’s a pretty human way to deal with billion-dollar setbacks.
