Dyson will spend about $3 billion to make solid state battery electric car by 2020

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British vacuum cleaner maker Dyson announced Tuesday that it is working on a “premium” electric car that will go on sale in 2020. They expect to spend at least $2.7 billion (£2 billion) on the car and battery technology.

Dyson recently spent $90 million to buy University of Michigan spinoff Sakti3. Sakti3’s solid state battery technology is potentially smaller, safer, more reliable and longer-lasting than the most advanced lithium-ion batteries on the market today.

The Dyson electric car team already has a staff of over 400 and they are recruiting aggressively.

Sakti3, Inc. (sakti3.com) announced that in mid-2014 that they had produced a battery cell on fully scalable equipment with over 1100 Watt hours per liter (Wh per l) in volumetric energy density. This translates to more than double the usage time in a wearable device like a smartwatch, from 3.5 h to more than 9 h. It also translates to almost double the range in an EV like the Tesla Model S, from 265 mi to 480 mi.

Sakti3 reports that it demonstrated over 1000 Wh per l in 2012, and has since moved to a pilot tool, using all scalable materials and equipment. The technology development was guided by mathematical simulations, starting with materials, and continuing to full scale plant layout to avoid any high cost materials, equipment or processes.

”Our [Sakti’s] target is to achieve mass production of cells at ~$100 per kWh,” said Dr. Ann Marie Sastry, CEO of Sakti3. “Our key patents on the technology have been issued, we are up and running on larger tooling, and can now speed up processing. Our first market will be consumer electronics, and after that, we’ll move to other sectors.”