James Dyson invests another £116m to build electric car testing facilities

Racetrack close to Dyson factory in Wiltshire will put forthcoming electric vehicle through its paces

Dyson is to build a ten-mile test track at new facilities close to its headquarters in Wiltshire to put its forthcoming electric car through its paces ahead of a planned launch in 2020.

Based on the site of a former World War Two air field in Wiltshire, the company will invest £116 million on the facilities, according to a planning application filed today.

"We are now firmly focused on the next stage of our automotive project, strengthening our credentials as a global research and development organisation," Dyson said.

The company already has a 400-strong team of engineers working on the car project in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. However, the new investment will see the company build a complex that can accommodate more than 2,000 staff, according to Reuters.

If the planning application is successful, it will take Dyson's total investment so far in electric car development to £200 million.

The investment is one of a number over the past decade to improve the state of engineering in the UK.

As a result, Dyson's commitment to research has led to several products that are now part of everyday life, including the bagless pivoting vacuum cleaner, bladeless fan, airblade hand dryer and ball wheelbarrow.

It follows Dyson's investment in 2015 of £12 million into the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London, which offers masters courses, and supports an inclusive and inventive set of students.

When it first launched, the Dyson Foundation said that spaces on the course were oversubscribed by a factor of six, and that there is a 60/40 split between men and women.

The year before, in 2014, Dyson put £5 million funding into a robotics laboratory.

Dyson, who nearly went bankrupt before launching the DC-01 vacuum cleaner in the mid-1990s is now said to have a personal fortune of £3 billion, largely related to the value of the eponymously named company.