THE inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner is to share his technology with the motor industry.

Sir James Dyson plans to use the motors from his vacuum cleaners to power fans and starter motors in cars.

The inventor will be hoping he can repeat his clean-up of the vacuum market with the Dyson Digital Motor, which powers the DC12 cleaner.

However, there are no plans for brightly coloured plastic cars to hit the roads just yet - although Mr Dyson refused to rule out a possibility of a Dyson car.

''I wouldn't like to say no, but we have lots of other plans at the moment,'' he told a financial newspaper.

"The digital motor has been talked about a lot in the industry, with few results, but we have done it. It will lead us into new products and it could lead to us being motor manufacturers."

The company's digital motor has turbocharger compressor technology and, with more than 100,000 revolutions a minute, operates at five times the speed of a Formula One engine.

The lack of carbon brushes in the motor also make it more reliable, durable and lighter than conventional electric motors.