LONDON: British inventor James Dyson, who is best known for his bagless vacuum cleaners, on Tuesday announced a plan to produce electric cars by 2020 with a £2.0 billion (2.3 billion euro, $2.7 billion) investment.

"Dyson has begun work on a battery electric vehicle, due to be launched by 2020," he said in an email to employees, referring to his company.

"The team is already over 400 strong, and we are recruiting aggressively. I´m committed to investing £2 billion on this endeavour," he said.

Dyson currently produces vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, fans, heaters and lighting but this is not his first foray into the automotive sector.

The inventor said that in the 1990s he developed a filter that could be fitted on car exhaust systems, but "nobody at the time was interested".

Due to poor government policies to tackle air pollution, "developed and developing cities are full of smog-belching cars, lorries and buses", he said.

"It is a problem that others are ignoring."

Britain in July announced plans to outlaw the sale of new diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040 in a bid to tackle a pollution crisis