The solar car Sion failed. The Munich start-up Sono Motors had unsuccessfully campaigned for 100 million euros for the construction of a pre-series from interested parties and investors and drew a line on Friday: The program would be discontinued with immediate effect, around 300 employees would be laid off.
“Despite the more than 45,000 reservations and pre-orders for the Sion, we were forced to react to the ongoing instability of the financial markets,” said company founder Laurin Hahn.
At the end of January, Sono was still confident of finding investors for the Sion program. A reservation campaign should save the solar car. Of the good 100 million euros, however, commitments were only received for around half.
Anyone who has reserved a car should now get their money back, it said. Several installments plus a bonus are planned over the next two years, starting with the first installment in May. Actually, the cars should be produced on a larger scale from 2024 and come on the market at a unit price of around 30,000 euros.
The compact electric car should be able to drive an average of 112 kilometers per week with solar cells on the body and have a range of a good 300 kilometers with additional power from the socket and a battery. However, the company urgently needed fresh money to be able to build the pre-series in 2023 and the first series cars in Finland in early 2024.
Sono now wants to focus on the business with solar cells for buses, refrigerated trailers or cars from other manufacturers. Discussions with potential investors focused exclusively on this from then on. The Munich-based company works with Mitsubishi Europe and the two Volkswagen subsidiaries Scania and MAN on their solar roofs for buses.
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