Lightyear abandons plans for own solar EVs (for now)

Lex Hoefsloot, CEO and co-founder of the company, spoke to Dutch media about the company’s plans. He said there is currently significant demand for solar modules for cars from the industry, while it is taking longer to bring its solar vehicles to market. In this context, Hoefsloot confirmed that Lightyear will lay off employees but did not give a number.

However, he stressed that Lightyear is still in talks with several potential partners to introduce the cheaper solar car model Lightyear 2 – so the project has not been wholly scrapped yet. Negotiations are currently underway with South Korean investor Sunbo for financing. He said that the decision to resume solar car production will depend on the negotiations and the capital market. However, the time frame for this decision is not known. “Conversations with these parties can go in various directions,” Hoefsloot said.

At the beginning of the year, Lightyear surprisingly stopped series production of its debut model Lightyear 0 due to financial problems. Shortly afterwards, the company filed for insolvency and was only able to restart on a reduced scale in April 2023 thanks to an injection of funds from a group of loyal investors – at that time, the focus was on readying the Lightyear 2 volume model for series production, which is now on hold with the current decision.

Lightyear is thus following a similar path to Sono Motors. The Munich-based start-up decided in February 2023 to discontinue its Sion solar car project and instead focus on the solar business for B2B customers.

nltimes.nl, telegraaf.nl, nos.nl (both in Dutch)