We absolutely love the idea of solar-powered electric cars here at Fully Charged Show, and over the past 12 months we’ve covered three of the most exciting and advanced examples from Sono Motors, Lightyear and Aptera. However, it seems that all three companies are, to varying degrees struggling to fund production for their groundbreaking products. Jack takes a look into the state of affairs at each company and explores why it’s so damn hard to get a new car brand off the ground in 2023.
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A very sad update from Sono motors just hours after this episode went live: The Sion has been discontinued.
https://sonomotors.com/en/press/press-releases/sono-motors-commits-to-focus-exclusively-on-solar-tech-company-and-has-terminated-the-sion-program/
The reason is that solar power is more expensive than investors thought.
These 3 failed because:
Lightyear price = WTAF?!
Sono car has no advantage; should stick to just panels.
Aptera is a trike.
Too bad Elon Musk is too busy wasting all this time and money on stupid Twitter when he could be make the world a better place with stuff like this.
Housing speculation should be massively discouraged.
People should invest in advancement, not housing Ponzis.
Fully charged woke up ! This is the kind of videos I have subscribed for, before you started to get a car reviewer. Please stop making Car Reviews as any other youtuber with no more information than a press kit and get back to your roots.
All the unreasonable distruptors have long since been dropping their kids at school with cargobike they bought 15-3 years ago. Using power they generate from their own roof top solar.
The Sono Sion car has been terminated as of now due to unsuccessful fund raising campaign.
They just announced it a couple of days ago.
Very good point about the size being too big for non-American countries. As an Australian I initially put down interest thinking the Aptera was much smaller than it was, also because I couldn’t get my hands on a long range Carver.
Also the more Aptera talks about Tesla chargers etc. the more they are going to alienate those from CCS standard countries, although I do believe it is going to come our way at some point via motorbikes etc. if nothing else, but we don’t have the charging infrastructure for them yet so Aptera pouring so much of their focus into their American rather than their international customers while understandable in some aspects, is also offputting.
On the flip side I put my name down with the full understanding that the Aptera was far more likely to my second EV rather than my first simply because it wasn’t in production yet and I’m Australian so everything always arrives later here, also the pesky ‘is it a car or a motorbike?’ thing when it comes to ‘will I actually be allowed to drive it?’
Also the irony that Aptera is encourage people to spend more money to get closer to getting their vehicles first while personally one of the things stopping me from cancelling my order is 1) it wasn’t a lot of money and 2) I’m so far down the end of the line that there will likely be plenty of time for me to see All The Things when they finally roll the car out, and hopefully Aptera will have figured quite a few things out before my name gets called. So I am quite happy to not be anywhere near the front right now.
Well, guess what happened to Sono Sion 🙁
I was writing down that quote and you got me…I had to go back and edit it, haha.
How can you forget about Rimac!
They need to understand the trend. Moving to electric vehicles means moving to cars driven by a battery, which offers a similar travel experience. It does not mean going to the solar-driven cars, and sacrificing the travel experience.
Jack – I don't think they do make sense. While it sounds like a nice idea the reality is the tech does not generate enough to make it worth while. Mr EV took his Ionic 5 to Italy where the weather looked great but the car solar only added about one kWh a day. So that was about 3 miles a day in a good climate. If the tech was free and added no weight of course I'd love it but this equates to 15 seconds charging on a fast charger which for me makes it a gimmick.
I hope these companies manage to keep going. I cannot understand why major car companies don't offer it.
Due to location my circumstances mean a car is almost a necessity as well as I like the idea of freedom of choice. I only do a couple of thousand miles a year and self charging whilst the car is sitting is very attractive. Being a motorhomer the self charging can't be that complicated, I assume.
It would be such a shame if these solar car companies dont make it to market and survive… Im especially fond of the Aptera, not because the way it looks but because of the tech and ultra efficiency it has. Its looks are why I wont own one lol.. I cant handle attention and sticking out in a crowd and that is all that would happen in that car.
These cars are all ugly. The basic formfactor of successful cars are that way for a reason. The sono is the most normal looking, but the odd narrow body that actually tapers in at the back is not attractive. The lightyear is ok, but the the wheel shields at the back and total lack of design flair is deeply uninteresting and generic. And the Aptera is truly ugly, somehow Sinclair c4-esque in its production trajectory. These cars are innovative and hold some promising technologies, but are prototypes displaying technology that ought to be incorporated into finished designs and are not themselves stand-alone designs. My thought…
THESE FAILURES SHOW AN ESSENTIAL PROBLEM OF CAPITALISM. ONE CAN NOT START A SUCCESSFUL CAR BRAND OUT OF THE BLUE; THE AMERICAN DREAM DOES NOT EXIST. REAL PROGRESS IS THE RESULT OF THE COLLECTIVE ………..
If I knew I get a car (Sion) – I would pay full price now.
But there is too many if, maybe, and but's, also it's a foreign brand for me.
Now on a halt / pause so… waiting another few years and see what happens.
I do love the idea of solar cells on the top of a car to increase the gap between recharge. I don't have off street parking do if I could add 20-30 miles a week that would make a huge difference to me.
I think part of the problem may be the grossly optimistic range they quote. Claims of up to fifty miles a day are likely ten times what is realistic. I wonder if this is part of what stops serious investers getting behind the products.
So, it's apparently quite hard to start a completely new car brand from the ground up.
I really wish that a company would commercialise production of adapter kits – maybe just add solar to an existing vehicle – tons of challenges to this but companies like Muxsan have created different adapters for charging, people so it with a supplementary battery that charges up via solar and then dumps that charge into the vehicle battery.
Hobbyists are already doing this so we know it works to some degree, just that their set ups are universally really ugly…