A Chinese vacuum maker wants to take on Bugatti

A 1,000-Person Team Will Make It Happen

Dreame Technology, a Chinese electronics company best known for vacuum cleaners, this week announced that it would launch an electric supercar by 2027. As if that wasn’t ambitious enough for a company new to the auto industry, Dreame specifically called out Bugatti in its announcement and said its car would be the world’s fastest.

To achieve this, Dreame claims to have assembled a team of around 1,000 engineers and other personnel with relevant experience. That includes executives from established automakers covering areas such as research and development, production engineering, and quality control, reports Autocar.

Will High-Speed Vacuums Translate To High-Speed Cars?

“Our dream is to create the fastest car in the world,” a letter to employees announcing the project said. “Great dreams are born from fearlessness.” The company hopes its experience with small electric motors for vacuum cleaners—including one design that spins up to 200,000 rpm—will prove relevant to car development.

“The luxury automotive sector has been missing a truly intelligent electric hypercar brand,” the Dreame announcement said. “While traditional ultra-luxury brands like Bugatti and Bentley have been slow to embrace electrification and intelligence, Dreame will redefine what constitutes ultra-luxury in the next automotive era.”

That statement should raise a few eyebrows at Bugatti’s sibling brand Rimac, maker of the Nevera electric supercar that’s been tussling with Koenigsegg for performance records, and BYD, whose Yangwang U9 recently became the world’s fastest electric car, with a top speed of 294 mph. And the old-money brands would likely respond that they haven’t embraced electrification because their customers aren’t interested in it.

Success Not Guaranteed

A company trying to break into the auto industry from another type of business is nothing new. Now-familiar brands like Mazda and Peugeot started out making other things before they made cars, and Dreame won’t even be the first Chinese company to attempt that move. Rival vacuum maker Roborock launched its Rox 01 EV in 2023 and Xiaomi, a backer of Dreame, has done quite well with its first two production cars.

In Dreame’s case, though, there’s also a cautionary tale. Dyson, another manufacturer of vacuum cleaners with innovative technology, once tried to make a car of its own. Like Dreame, Dyson assumed it could apply experience from its products to EVs, and even hired executives from Aston Martin, Infiniti, and Tesla to manage the project. But it was canceled in 2019, a reminder that making cars is hard.