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Lightyear halts €250,000 solar-panel electric car and is now looking at a more affordable model.

Published: 2023-01-24

Lightyear has discontinued production of the €250,000 Lightyear 0 electric car with integrated solar panels three months after it started. However, the intention was to focus on the less expensive Lightyear 2 for the mass market.


As Lightyear noted in a blog post, the rollback is part of a "strategic restructuring." And now the company will focus on the sub-$40,000 Lightyear 2 electric car, which will go into production in late 2025.


The decision was not easy to make, Lightyear said, as it would impact its employees as well as relationships with "investors, customers, suppliers and the government." In particular, this could affect Valmet Automotive, which Lightyear has contracted to assemble the Lightyear 0 (and which earlier in January announced possible layoffs in the division responsible for the production of the car).


As for the reasons why Lightyear decided to stop production of Lightyear 0, the explanations are quite vague. The company says it has had to face several challenges over the past few months and the move is meant to "protect its vision."


Lightyear also reported that it had filed a lawsuit to “suspend the payment procedure” for the company responsible for the manufacture of Lightyear 0. Apparently, we are talking about Valmet Automotive, whose plant in Uusikaupunki (Finland) began mass production of an electric car in November last year. on solar batteries. At the moment, it is not known how many pieces Lightyear 0 managed to collect in three months. At the initial stage, the company planned to produce about 946 units of this model.


The more affordable Lightyear 2 electric car, unveiled at CES 2023, is also equipped with solar panels. The power reserve of the new model on a single battery charge is 800 km. The company said the Lightyear 2 will get "all the innovations of Lightyear 0 at a fraction of the market price". There are already “20,000 pre-orders from fleet owners” for the Lightyear 2 crossover, according to its announcement on Monday.