Surely you’ve heard by now that Dyson was planning to launch a battery electric vehicle platform on which they could have built several body types, with the first being an SUV. Unfortunately, the project that was aimed to take on Tesla was canceled after it was deemed “not commercially viable”. Since then we’ve only been given minor glimpses of this prototype’s design. Now, however, we have fresh images and additional details.

Dubbed the N526, this is a seven-seater family hauler measuring roughly 5 meters long and two meters wide, and standing 1.7 meters tall. It has an overall simple yet modern design, with flush door handles, camera mirrors and a large panoramic roof.


The fact that the SUV has a completely flat bottom really helped in terms of ground clearance, while the large wheels come in handy over when it comes to rolling resistance as you can ride over bumps and potholes more easily, argues Dyson.

Underneath the prototype’s bodywork is a bespoke electric drive unit comprising the company’s ‘digital’ electric motor, a single speed transmission and a power inverter, all mounted on subframes at the front and rear of the car. In an interview with Autocar, Dyson’s founder revealed that the N526 SUV produced around 536 hp and 479lb ft of torque from its two electric motors allowing for a 0-100 km/h in 4.8 seconds and a top speed of 201 km/h. It also had an impressive claimed driving range of 965 km – by comparison, the Tesla Model X has a top range of 564 km in Long Range+ specification. Aside from the ample space created by the positioning of the wheels and the absence of an exhaust and engine, the prototype also came with these elegant structural seats featuring strong posture support.


Dyson said he didn’t want typical armchair-style car seats that don’t even feature proper lumbar support in his 7-seater BEV. It would have cost US$ 190,000 just to break even Sir James Dyson spent roughly US$ 630 million (GBP 500 million) of his own money on this project, before deciding to abandon it. All in, Dyson as a company, had committed to invest US$ 3.15 billion (£ 2.5 billion) into its newly created automotive unit. In order to break even, Dyson’s founder projected that his company would have had to sell each car for US$ 190,000 (GBP 150,000), which was, obviously, considered unrealistic.