Sono Motors kills Sion EV in return to solar tech business

Sono Motors is ending its long-awaited electrical automotive program and as an alternative turning to a enterprise that goals to promote its photo voltaic automobile expertise to different corporations.

The Germany-based firm, which went public in November 2022, introduced on Friday that it could lay off 300 of its workers as a result of change in its enterprise mannequin. COO Thomas Hausch can be leaving his put up.

The shift seems to be pushed by the one-to-two punch of a high-cost EV program coupled with quickly depleting capital. Sono Motors had been grappling with monetary issues for years, almost shutting down till at one level it appealed to people and gained help from them via a crowdfunding marketing campaign.

Regardless of being on the core of the corporate, the Sion EV program is consistently pushing its finances. The corporate stated that an estimated 90% of its financing wants for 2023 are allotted to the Sion EV, a $25,000 five-seat hatchback anticipated to enter manufacturing this yr.

Sono Motors will now flip its consideration to promoting a expertise it has developed for the Sion EV: solar energy embedded within the automobile. The corporate’s enterprise will adapt and combine photo voltaic expertise, which incorporates energy electronics and software program, into industrial autos reminiscent of buses in addition to automobiles manufactured by OEMs.

“This pivot marks an essential step in Sono Motors’ enterprise growth,” Sono Motors CEO and co-founder Laurin Hahn stated in a press release. “Though we needed to finish our authentic ardour challenge, the Sion program, shifting our focus to business-to-business photo voltaic options provides us the chance to proceed creating revolutionary merchandise within the photo voltaic house. This was a tough choice, and regardless of greater than 45,000 reservations and pre-orders for Sion, we needed to react to the continuing monetary market instability and streamline our enterprise.”

Sono stated in the present day it has 23 business-to-business clients utilizing its built-in photo voltaic expertise in a spread of autos, together with third-party OEM automobiles, buses, refrigerated autos and leisure autos. Sono stated it’s working with Mitsubishi Europe, CHEREAU and Volkswagen subsidiaries Scania and MAN Truck & Bus.

The Germany-based firm started in 2016 when co-founders Jona Christians, Laurin Hahn and Navina Pernsteiner launched an bold plan to construct {a partially} electrical passenger electrical automobile, on the lookout for a option to cut back society’s dependence on fossil fuels. Solar. (Pernsteiner left the corporate in 2020.) From afar, prototypes of the Sion automobile seemed like a compact automotive painted black. A more in-depth look revealed that all the exterior of the automobile really consisted of lots of of photo voltaic cells built-in into polymer as an alternative of glass.

In January 2021, the corporate introduced plans to license its photo voltaic panel expertise to different corporations. These photo voltaic cells convert daylight into power saved within the automobile’s battery. On the time, Hahn stated the expertise would make autos much less depending on charging infrastructure. It could possibly additionally help auxiliary energy purposes, reminiscent of electrical energy used to energy a refrigerated truck.

A product referred to as “Photo voltaic Bus Equipment” is deliberate for the second quarter of 2023.