Dyson has unveiled plans to develop and build its own electric car by 2020, gatecrashing the existing market and promising to hire hundreds of people in the UK.

Sir James Dyson confirmed the long-rumoured plans, promising to invest £2bn of the company’s money to build a “radical” motor from scratch over the next few years.

The billionaire entrepreneur said he had been inspired to develop his own vehicle after car giants had ignored his pleas to use Dyson’s emission-reducing exhausts in the 1990s. A fully-electric car has been an ambition of the company since 1998 and full work on the project began two and a half years ago.