Sono Motors announced on 24 December, that the company has received more than 1,000 full deposits for the solar electric vehicle Sion. The 50-day #savesion campaign was launched on 8 December and aims at raising approx. €100m gross from deposits, which equals 3,500 fully paid reservations for the Sion. The company will only withdraw the money from the crowd investors if it reaches the campaign goal. This sum is intended to cover a large part of the investments up to pre-series production of the Sion in 2023 and trigger a positive domino effect as the first step in a far-reaching financing strategy.
Laurin Hahn, co-founder and CEO of Sono Motors: “The milestone of 1,000 full deposits shows that it is worth fighting together for the Sion. Our solar electric car program is well advanced. In a solar winter test under real conditions in December, the month with the least daylight, we reached a calculated 28 km of pure solar range per week. This means that we were already able to achieve 80% of the expected winter solar yield about a year ahead of planned production. This test with a series-validation vehicle confirms the potential for an average of 5,800 km annual solar range in Munich, thanks to the unique integration of the solar modules into the entire body. In addition, bidirectional charging is functional. We were able to test our V2V charging technology with 3 phases at 13 amps with limited amperage during the first test cycles. This resulted in a bidirectional charging output of 8 kW AC between a Sion and an unmodified series EV. After the start of production, a planned OTA software update will enable the Sion to charge with up to 11 kW AC. At the same time, we are in an intensive testing phase with 13 vehicles for series validation and 32 body-in-white, including tests in the U.S., Spain, Sweden, Italy, Hungary and Germany.”
Roughly two weeks ago, Sono Motors said that it would not continue the Sion program if the #savesion campaign failed. Instead, the company would focus on its B2B solar business, which requires less capital and has already started generating revenue. To date, Sono Motors has raised over €330 million via investors and financial instruments. However, due to the capital market decline in the recent past, it was not able to fully finance the remaining capital necessary until the planned start of production in the first quarter of 2024.
“The successful start of the campaign fills us with pride and gives us the certainty that the demand for the Sion is great and our solar electric car is urgently needed as a partial solution to climate change and the energy crisis,” says Jona Christians, co-founder and CEO of Sono Motors. “We have received almost no state funding, so we will continue to focus on our Community and on the capital markets. We have raised over €330m in capital since 2016, which, by German standards, is a huge amount of money. Less than 0.5% of these funds were provided by the government. That is really sad and clearly shows that innovative solar technology remains a low priority for our government,” adds Christians.
In support of the #savesion campaign, the Sion is on a test-drive tour through 12 cities in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands in December 2022 and January 2023. The next stops include Oberhausen, Germany, on 28 December 2022, and Frankfurt, Germany, on 4 January 2023. In addition, the Sion is on show at the Sono Motors’ Munich showroom, which is open seven days a week.
Sono Motors starts funding campaign to save Sion solar EV production
