Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

The future of the second car is also uncertain.

Unexpectedly, the light of new energy vehicles is going out as soon as it is on.

Lighteryaer, a solar-powered start-up from the Netherlands, just thundered and the company's first car, the lightyear 0, was aborted.

Lightyear 0 is the world's first solar car that can be mass-produced.

When Lightyear launched the car in June last year, it was a surprise. Although the concept of solar energy instead of charging is nothing new, solar energy can make up for the lack of charging facilities for pure electric vehicles.

Of course, Lightyear 0 is not cheap, with a price of $263000 (about 1.76 million yuan).

Source: Atlas Technologies B.V., the manufacturer of Lightyear Lightyear 0 recently. The request for a suspension of delivery was approved by a local court in the Netherlands, and the company also issued a notice suspending production of the model.

At present, Lightyear is the only car, the second car is still in the testing and development stage, now the main company suddenly went bankrupt, although the company also plans to develop a second lower-priced solar car, but the future is not clear.

"more than 600 people and I will soon lose their jobs, but now it must be stressed that the company's greatest asset is its employees, so I sincerely appeal to all of you to share your suggestions for us to find a new job."

On LinkedIn, Lightyear's employees have planned to look for a new job.

01. The main body of the factory suddenly went bankrupt. Everything came very suddenly.

Earlier this year, Lightyear also took part in the 2023 CES Electronics Consumer Show, showing off a prototype of his second car, the flag, which was built in 2025, and of course, Lightyear 0, its flagship model.

Less than a month later, the world's first mass-produced solar car was suddenly announced to stop production, which officials vaguely called a "strategic restructuring."

Source: Lightyear court granted suspension of Atlas Technologies B.V. After the application for the delivery process, Lightyear also issued a brief and clear statement on its website: "Lightyear regrets having to announce this news to all employees, customers, investors and suppliers, and will work closely with all relevant personnel. Hope they understand and support."

According to local law, this legal procedure can be used when enterprises do not have sufficient funds to make payments but still want to avoid bankruptcy.

According to the procedure, after suspending the payment process for two to four months, the court will push for a hearing at which creditors can vote on the final deferred payment. If the extension is approved, the debtor will have 18 months to solve the current problems.

It is important to note that the main body of the Dutch solar start-up is actually divided into three companies that exist independently of each other.

Except for the bankrupt Atlas Technologies B.V. Besides, Lightyear also includes Atlas Technologies HoldingB.V, which owns intellectual property rights. And Lightyear Layer B.V, while Atlas Technologies B.V. It can be said that it is the core of the three companies, which is responsible for the production of vehicle Lightyear 0.

Source: Lightyear means that the bankruptcy proceedings only affect the manufacturing company and do not affect the normal operation of the parent company with Lightyear intellectual property.

According to Lightyrar, the decision is to focus resources on the development of a second model, Lightyear 2.

Lex Hoefsloot, the company's chief executive and co-founder, said he would shift all focus and resources to Lightyear 2, "which actually means we have to suspend production of lightyear 0."

But even if all resources are tilted to Lightyear 2, it remains to be seen whether it will go on sale in 2025 as promised.

According to Lightyear's original plan, the original plan was to help the company earn the first bucket of gold by producing Lightyear 0 and delivering it, and then provide funds for the company to develop a second model, Lightyear 2.

Source: the low price of Lightyear means that Lightyear 2 makes economic sense only when it is produced in large quantities, but Lightyear does not even have the production funds for Lightyear 0, so what can be used to make Lightyear 2?

Until now, Lightyear expects "some key investments to be made in the next few weeks", but insiders don't believe it.

02. Who is Lightyear car? The Lightyear was originally a project of the solar team at the University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, and the prototype car of Lightyear 0 was the team's first car, the Lightyear ONE.

Source: Lightyear, that is, Lightyear comes from the university entrepreneurship team, the Eindhoven Solar Group (Solar Team Eindhoven), which won the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in 2013, 2015 and 2017.

While getting excellent results in the race, they are also considering how to land this solar-powered car on a large scale.

In 2016, Lex Hoefsloot, an engineering professor at the University of Eindhoven and coach of the team, co-founded Lightyear with five co-founders, Koen van Ham, Martijn Lammers, Arjo vander Ham and Qurein Biewenga. Lightyear is currently a physical company independent of Eindhoven University.

Lightyear 0 is the first mass-produced solar car. In fact, to some extent, the Lightyear 0 is strictly an "add-on EV". The car still relies on a motor as a source of power, with a motor on each wheel.

Source: the hood and roof of the LightyearLightyear 0 are covered with about 5 square meters of solar panels, which can be simply understood as this huge solar panel that recharges the lithium battery pack in the car all the time.

Source: if the Lightyear has enough sunlight, they will recharge at 1.05kW, enough to increase the range of 9.98km in an hour, and the Lightyear 0 can travel 43 miles (70km) a day without recharging.

If you need to recharge, the 60kwh battery pack of Lightyear 0 can be recharged at 520km / h (DC fast charging), 200km / h (public charging pile) and 32km / h (home charging pile), while solar panels can charge the battery at a maximum speed of 10km / h.

With a price tag of 250000 euros (1.85 million yuan), Lex Hoefsloot, the company's chief executive and co-founder, said he plans to produce about 1000 Lightyear 0s at the Valmet Automotive Oyj car plant in Finland.

Although the new concept of solar-powered cars is very attractive, the price of more than 1.8 million of solar cars is comparable to that of luxury cars, which dissuades many ordinary consumers.

In the end, when production was stopped, Lightyear 0 received only about 150 advance orders.

Lightyear 2, which was unveiled on CES this year, shows a market with overwhelming demand for Lightyear cars.

Shortly after the show, Lightyear CEO and co-founder Hofslute announced the number of bookings for Lightyear 2: 20,000 bookings from car owners and more than 40,000 individual customer subscriptions.

Source: the LightyearLightyear 2 has a cross-border body shape and has a range of more than 800km. Under sunny conditions, the car's solar panels can provide an additional range of about 70km per day.

Most importantly, the price of lightyear 2 is more people-friendly than lightyear 0, which is only 40, 000 euros (about 295000 yuan).

03. Is there any chance of solar cars? Lightyear 0 stopped production less than three months after it was put into production, which also exposed the key problem of solar car companies: lack of money.

Sono Motors, also a solar car start-up, said publicly a few years ago that it needed to find $50 million in 30 days to survive. Although it has survived now, its business condition is not good.

Compared with the Lightyear, the Sion has a lower positioning and is a five-seater MPV with a unique solar panel structure. Sono claims this allows it to reap up to 245km (152mil) of range per week. It can also be recharged with a traditional car charger.

Source: SonoSion originally planned to launch at a starting price of 12000 euros (about 88000 yuan). It has since risen to 25500 euros (187000 yuan) and is now 29900 euros (about 220000 yuan).

The rising price also makes fewer and fewer Sion orders, gradually unable to make ends meet. Sono has claimed that investors advised it to restructure to focus on its solar panel business, firing 70 per cent of its employees and returning Sion booking holders.

In the more than five years before Sono did not have IPO, Sono raised a total of only $126.6 million, less than a fraction of Wei Xiaoli, and Lightyear currently has only one public financing, 81 million euros from the Dutch public consortium.

Source: Sono in the era of global automaker all in pure electric vehicles, this concept is advanced, the future is not clear niche technology route, it is difficult to find a sustainable source of funding.

Traditional car companies such as Toyota and Hyundai, as well as domestic companies such as Hanergy, have launched similar products.

Toyota introduced optional solar panels on its best-selling hybrid model, the Prius, in 2010, which was later cancelled due to uncertainties. It was not until 2017 that it became part of the Toyota Prius Prime again, when the solar panels of the 2017 Prius Prime powered the battery pack of the hybrid system.

China's Hanergy Group launched four solar-powered concept cars as early as 2016 and announced that it would produce them in mass production within three years, but so far there has been no follow-up.

Source: although Musk has always said that solar energy is the ideal clean energy for mankind in the future, it does not focus on the development of solar cars and has been committed to solar infrastructure power supply.

Obviously, Musk understands that it is too early to use current technology to build a solar car that is acceptable to consumers, and most solar cars still think that they are produced in the laboratory.

So, if you want to drive a real solar-powered car, you have to wait.

This article is from the official account of Wechat: Chaodian Lab (ID:SuperEV-Lab), author: Wang Lei

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