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Like pixies and pegasus, the idea of a solar powered car is dreamy and perfect. Who wouldn’t want a car powered by the sun? Who wouldn’t want to throw out the lines and bills at the gas station? This one car can travel up to 450 miles on a single charge, with solar panels on a five square meter roof capable of restoring up to 12 km of range every hour. This one car has four electric motors! This one car… sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it?
The first generation Lightyear 0 (go figure: the website is called light-years.one) began production for the European market in December 2022, the company claims, though video from the “production line” looks more like someone’s garage than a factory floor. (The company says the factory that makes A Class Mercedes will eventually do the production.)
Now, at CES 2023, the company has unveiled the next-generation Lightyear 2 – and no, we’re not sure what happened to version 1 either.
“We are applying all the lessons – and there are many – from Lightyear 0 to Lightyear 2,” said Alexandre Hoefsloot, CEO and co-founder of Lightyear. But it’s still early days, and it takes a while to make a new car, let alone one powered by the sun. “This is still going to take two and a half years to get into production… you know, cars. It’s going to take a long time,” he said.
Disclaimer: Together with other members of the press I was allowed to view the new model. But I couldn’t photograph it or make videos for you. Still, I looked closely. and it’s really fun!
As with the 0, the Lightyear 2 harnesses the power of the sun with solar panels on the hood, roof and over the trunk. They are hybrid vehicles, meaning they don’t rely entirely on sunshine for power; the point is just to reduce dependence on strained power grids. In fact, they’re also flipping the script by feeding clean energy back to the grid, the company claims.
Rainbows and unicorns sound great too, right? Unfortunately, the company’s one-pager is as light on details as sunshine. To confirm the car’s viability and answer some key questions, Techradar joined the company for an exclusive reveal at CES in Las Vegas.
“In a real solar car, our definition is that at least half of all the energy you need in a year should come from the sun,” Hoefsloot told me. “Even in the Netherlands. And it’s the cloudiest country in the world, so we think it’s a pretty good definition.” It’s a smart definition, which explains the seasonality: you get less sunlight in winter than in summer, but that doesn’t mean that a solar-powered car is mothballed for six months. In winter you simply pay more per kilometer.
The interior of the Model 2 is surprisingly stripped down: there’s a large LCD screen, like in the Tesla Model 3 (Hoefsloot told me he drives it himself). But there’s no instrument panel and almost nothing within reach other than the steering wheel. Instead of a speedometer, there is a folding storage compartment. And a small display between the steering wheel and windshield that shows speed and range and all the other specs you need.
“The target price of less than $40,000? To hit that with a completely new concept? It’s a challenge. So everything you see here in the interior is also focused on how we get to those cost levels,” said Hoefsloot. Hence the doors are recycled plastic, textile over the front dash adds splash and character, but in the end it’s stripped down a bit.
Our first customer gets to know his car for the first time, on Dutch soil. pic.twitter.com/K14QwsSw3wDecember 20, 2022
In July 2021, the company said it was working with Finnish company Valnet to build prototypes of the Lightyear 0, which carries a six-figure price tag. Last summer, the company finally opened its barn doors to show the world the fruits of half a decade of work: a $250,000 solar-powered EV that can run for up to seven months without being plugged into a traditional charger.
Several companies, besides Lightyear, are currently “on the cusp” of producing scalable solar-powered vehicles that could hit the road soon. Mercedes, Hyundai, Tesla and Toyota, just to name a few major brands, are actively developing solar powered models or hybrid versions thereof.
The main issues that continue to plague the roll-out of these vehicles include the difficulty of producing safe, reliable and cost-effective vehicle integration modules, as well as the reduction in power generation caused by inclement weather and other obstacles (think the number of buildings, bridges , trees and tunnels blocking roof panels).
But solar powered cars? Who wouldn’t want that? We hold our breath for the unicorns.