Plug pulled on another solar-powered electric car

The Sono Sion – a solar-powered electric car with a €29,900 ($AU43,600) price – has been axed before the first examples hit European roads.

German start-up Sono Motors has cancelled plans to build the Sion – tipped to become the first mass-produced ‘affordable’ solar-powered electric car – after failing to secure funding for the project.

In July 2022, Sono Motors planned for Sion production to begin in early 2023, priced from €29,900 ($AU43,600) in Europe – approximately €20,000 ($AU29,000) less than an entry-level Tesla Model 3 electric car.

The Sion claimed up to 305km of electric driving range on a charge while the 456 solar half-cells built into its body panels could provide up to 245km of additional range per week.

However, in a media statement late last week, Sono Motors said it had “decided to pivot … to exclusively retrofitting and integrating its solar technology onto third party vehicles, and to terminate its Sion passenger car program,” effective immediately.

“It was a difficult decision and despite more than 45,000 reservations and pre-orders for the Sion, we were compelled to react to the ongoing financial market instability and streamline our business,” Sono Motors CEO Laurin Hahn said in a media statement.

According to Sono Motors, approximately 22,000 reservations for the Sion were made without payment as non-binding pre-orders by its existing business partners.

Sono Motors claims it had already received more than €330 million ($AU518 million) in funding for the Sion project, but its attempts to raise an additional €100 million ($AU157 million) to secure production ultimately fell short.

A third-party production firm in Finland reportedly built 18 Sono Sions before the program was axed, with the decision to not continue the project resulting in more than 300 employees being made redundant.

The Sono Sion’s axing marks the second solar-powered electric car to go out of production – or not make it onto public roads – within a month.

In January 2023, assembly of the Lightyear Zero – the world’s first road-ready solar-powered electric car – was paused after the company’s subsidiary responsible for producing the vehicles, Atlas Technologies, filed for bankruptcy.

Lightyear originally intended to build 946 examples of the €250,000 ($AU382,000) Zero solar car, though only a handful of finished examples rolled off the line before production was paused indefinitely.

While Lightyear previously announced plans to launch a more affordable solar-powered electric car in 2024 or 2025 – named the Lightyear Two – its debut is now in doubt.

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