This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

The billionaire inventor Sir James Dyson has scrapped plans to build an electric car after deciding the project was not commercially viable.

Dyson, who is one of the most prominent business figures to back Brexit, confirmed in 2017 that he planned to invest £2.5bn in technologies including a battery-powered vehicle, which was due to roll off production lines in 2021.

But in an email to staff on Thursday, he said that while his automotive team had built a “fantastic car” the project had ultimately been unsuccessful.

“[…] Though we have tried very hard throughout the development process, we simply can no longer see a way to make it commercially viable,” he said.

The entrepreneur told staff he had tried to sell the division, which employs 523 people, but that no buyer had been forthcoming.

In a statement, the company said it hoped to find employment elsewhere in the company for most of the staff who were working on the project, including 498 in the UK.

“This is not a product failure, or a failure of the team, for whom this news will be hard to hear and digest,” Dyson said. “Their achievements have been immense – given the enormity and complexity of the project.”

“For those who cannot, or do not wish to, find alternative roles, we will support them fairly and with the respect deserved.”

He announced plans last year to invest £200m in a testing facility on a former second world war airfield at Hullavington, near the company’s facility at Malmesbury, Wiltshire.

But Dyson faced criticism for deciding to build a factory to produce the “radically different” vehicle in Singapore, after moving the company’s headquarters there.

“Since day one we have taken risks and dared to challenge the status quo with new products and technologies,” he said on Thursday.

“Such an approach drives progress, but has never been an easy journey – the route to success is never linear.

“This is not the first project which has changed direction and it will not be the last.”

Prof David Bailey, of Birmingham Business School, said: “It never stacked up as a commercial proposition, it seemed more like a vanity project on his part.

“Tesla have poured billions into it and haven’t made a profit – or are barely profitable. Volkswagen and Ford are having to collaborate on research and development, similarly Jaguar Land Rover and BMW. You need really big scale to recoup the cost of R&D.”

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Dyson, best known in the UK for inventing a bagless vacuum cleaner, revealed draft designs for the car earlier this year, publishing plans he said were “deliberately light on specifics”.

Bailey said patents filed during the car’s development could now be sold off to automotive companies working on developing their own battery-powered cars.

“You had to wonder if they had such fantastic technology why they didn’t just licence it,” he said. “That might now be a feasible path.”

• This article was amended on 11 October 2019 to correct the name of the business school at which David Bailey is professor to Birmingham, from Aston as an earlier version said.