Inventor: James Dyson hopes to boost his £800million fortune James Dyson is working on a solar-powered car to match the success of his bagless vacuum cleaner. Engineers at the entrepreneur’s Wiltshire HQ are developing a lightweight electric motor that could power a family saloon for hundreds of miles. The battery would be charged by solar panels mounted on the vehicle’s roof, or on the roof of a garage where the car is kept. Sir James, whose inventions have made him a fortune worth around £800million, believes electric cars will outnumber petrol ones within a decade. ‘Electric cars are seen as city cars and to go 30mph is quite enough, but in the future that will change. An electric motor can go to very high speeds,’ he said. The UK’s best-selling electric car, the G-Wiz, costs around 1p a mile to run and is exempt from road tax. But its battery takes eight hours to charge from the mains and lasts just 40 miles. The motor on the proposed Dyson car would be based on those used in the company’s vacuum cleaners and hand dryers.

Dyson is expected to work with an existing carmaker such as Honda, rather than design and build a vehicle from scratch. Rival: Dyson wants to improve upon the idea of the G-Wiz, which is limited to 40 miles and takes eight hours to charge, by fitting his car with a solar panel Richard Dyer, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, said: ‘Electric cars that run on electricity generated by renewable energy produce zero carbon emissions. vacuum cleaner bag smells‘These cars will be crucial to reducing transport’s impact on climate change and should be introduced widely as soon as possible.’ hoover vacuum cleaners uprightThe vehicle would prove a boon to motorists dismayed by soaring fuel prices, with diesel now costing more than £1.30 a litre. hoover vacuum replacement tools

There will be concerns however over whether Britain is sunny enough for solar power to work. Sir James has been behind a string of design hits, starting with the Ballbarrow wheelbarrow he came up with in the 1970s. He found even greater success in the 1990s with his now iconic vacuum cleaners. He has also developed a ‘supercharged’ hand dryer and in 2000 brought out a two-drum washing machine. 1 - 20 of 54 results Four essential Dyson tools Removes dust & allergens from your home Compatible with Dyson cordless vacuum cleaners Compatible with Numatic Henry vacuum cleaners Includes 4 vacuum bags & 2 motor filters Efficiently removes hair and dirt Suitable for carpets & upholstery Compatible with all Vax carpet cleaners Compatible with Dyson DC01 upright vacuum cleaners Three essential Dyson tools Includes convenient storage bag Compatible with Vax Steam plus Detergent models Compatible with Dyson vacuum cleaners Compatible with Miele vacuum cleaners

Ideal for removing pet hair Compatible with Kärcher Window Vacuum Cleaner Compatible with full-sized carpet cleaners Compatible with all Kärcher pressure washers Cleans mattresses & upholstery Removes dust & allergensDon't rule it out. We're suckers for innovation, says CEO Also refuses to rule out perpetual motion machine, breakable perfect crypto Dyson's chief executive has hinted at the British technology company's interest in entering the crazy world of automobiles. Known for its vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and digital motors, the company's chief executive hinted at Dyson's interest in cars in an interview with the Telegraph. Announcing its annual financial results, Dyson reported a 10 per cent rise in turnover to £1.38bn, while CEO Max Conze told the Telegraph that the company's engineers "have the potential to deliver what he called 'breakthrough' technologies'". Dyson invested $15m (£10m) in US solid-state battery startup Sakti3 in March, which Conze explained allowed the company to hoover up some sweet tech for its hand-held devices.

"Sakti3 has the best remit to deliver breakthrough technology into other industries, though I could not comment on what they are," Conze mysteriously added. "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]," Conze ruminated. The interviewer then asked "if the company could follow Tesla by applying its battery technology into electric cars, or copy Apple", which has long been rumoured (though perhaps wrongly) to be entering the world of automobiles. In response, Conze stated: "We are ruling nothing out." He added: "Like our friends in Cupertino, we are also unhealthily obsessive when it comes to taking apart our products to make them better." Dyson's results state profits rose by 13 per cent, after being hit by the strong pound, with a 41 per cent increase in research and development from £80m to £113m in 2014.

The company's total tax contribution was £79.8m. Sir James Dyson, founder of the company – which has has 2,500 engineers globally – said the company spent £3m per week as it developed expertise in entirely new areas. "We are working on the core technology which will deliver the next leap in technology," said the billionaire philanthropist, inventor, landowner, and supporter of Blighty joining the Eurozone. "For that we need the world's best engineers, whether at our Malmesbury research laboratories or in the universities we are partnered with. Our technology is our future." ® Fast data protection ROI?As a technology journalist it's not often you're asked to review a vacuum cleaner, but the Dyson DC59 is a bit different. Close to 1,000 patents went into its design - covering everything from the V6 digital motor, to the two-tier Radial cyclones - demonstrating Dyson's history of reinventing product categories through ruthless innovation.Dyson's commitment to engineering excellence was recently summed up by Dyson design engineer Nick Schneider, who told IBTimes UK: "We're not about being adequate or satisfactory, we're about going beyond that."

So with this in mind, does Dyson's top-of-the-range DC59 cordless vacuum cleaner actually live up to the hype?The DC59 is recognizably a Dyson machine, with its cyclone housing and see-through chamber and floor tool showing off the inner workings. What separates it from more traditional Dyson vacuum cleaners is that it's designed to be held in the hand, cord-free. without compromising on performance.To achieve this, it needs to be lightweight and manoeuvrable, while still housing a powerful motor and a big enough battery to not require constant recharging. The two heaviest components, the battery and the motor, are positioned either side of the handle, making it feel both flexible and lightweight. "We call it 360-degree cleaning, which means you can clean anywhere on a 360-degree axis," Schneider said.The transparent chamber allows you to see all of the dust and dirt it gathers spinning around and lets you know when it needs to be emptied. To do this, a simple switch pops it open - the only issue is that it rarely falls out of its own accord.

Instead, it requires either getting your hands dirty or utilising a small utensil to dislodge it. Fortunately, it's also relatively easy to remove and replace the chamber if you want to wipe it clean when it gets dust and dirt on the inside of the perspex chamber.Dyson has previously claimed that this bagless design, combined with its removable and cleanable filter, will save users around £175 over five years.One of the most useful features in terms of the machine's maintenance is the ability to take out the entire brush bar in case it gets tangled up with hair - or in my case headphones - to easily remove it.A variety of other tools and attachments are included that snap in to place, either at the end of the wand or directly to the main device. They all click in easily but a slight looseness when in place detracts slightly from what is otherwise a completely solid design.Finally, the "run-time enhancing trigger" helps to ensure power is only consumed when the machine is actually vacuuming, while providing the added bonus of making it feel like you're wielding a futuristic weapon.

By Dyson's own standards, the DC59 is the first cordless vacuum cleaner to match the suction capabilities of a corded machine. It achieves this through the powerful V6 digital motor. Around £150m went in to the development of this motor, which at 110,000rpm spins five-times faster than a Formula 1 car engine. Considering this, it's perhaps not surprising that there were no real issues with picking up a mix of large debris (cereals and rice) and fine dirt (flour and sugar) from both hard floors and carpets. The motorised cleaning head contains a combination of nylon bristles for carpets and carbon fibre filaments for fine dust on hard floors.The use of carbon-fibre also prevents static electricity from building up on carpets, which can cause dust to cling to floors.To achieve its flexible and lightweight design, there have had to be some compromises, most notably with the DC59's battery life and relatively small chamber size.A run time of 26 minutes is adequate for small or medium-sized flats or homes, however any more than two or three rooms requires the chamber to be emptied.

A 'Max' button is included on the rear of the machine for when the full power of the V6 motor is needed to be put to use, however using it cuts the battery time down to just six minutes.Despite this short battery life, its performance in this mode is impressive. When I first received the DC59 review unit I had actually just done some vacuuming the day before. Wanting to test it out anyway I charged it up and set about the carpets with the Max button switched on. In one room alone I was able to half-fill the chamber from what I thought was a clean carpet.As with all Dyson products, premium design and performance comes at a price. The DC59 is currently the highest-priced cordless Dyson vacuum cleaner at just a penny shy of £350.This relatively high price could turn people towards cheaper competitors, even if that means choosing a less powerful machine. The DC59's biggest competition could actually come from within the Dyson family itself, with the DC44 (£299.99) and the DC35 (£250) both offering capable but more affordable alternatives.