It seemed that it had everything to face to succeed: we are talking about the Lightyear 0, the first production car of the young Finnish manufacturer that, just two months after the start of production, completely stops your assembly indefinitelya. It promised unprecedented efficiency and an exceptional contribution of energy thanks to its solar panels, but the brand has decided to suspend its production to focus on other projects. What has really happened?
In Diariomotor we have talked at length about Lightyear 0, a sort of 5,083-meter-long sedan coupe, whose main objective has been to become, to begin with, the first mass-produced solar vehicle and, second, one of the most efficient vehicles on the market. Of course, it is not a cheap car: With a starting price of more than €200,000 and a limited run, the Lightyear 0 is one of the most exclusive vehicles on the market.
With a Cx coefficient of just 0.19 and the integration of 5 square meters of solar panels, the Lightyear 0 was intended to become a benchmark for greener and more exclusive mobility.. Just a few weeks after the start of production and making public the intentions of giants like Arval, a company with which the manufacturer had signed a purchase agreement for 10,000 units, now the brand’s CEO surprises the world by announcing the indefinite suspension , from the production of the Lightyear 0.
The Lightyear 0 stops, but it does so for a good cause
The words of the head of the company, lex hoefslootleaves no room for doubt: “The entire Lightyear 0 development process has offered our company a multitude of very valuable lessons in recent years. Now we are redirecting all our energy towards the construction of the Lightyear 2 to make it available to customers on time.”
In other words: in a resource-constrained environment, the manufacturer has decided to set aside the Lightyear 0 to focus all its efforts on the creation of the Lightyear 2an electric car that inherits all the solar technology from its older brother but in a much more reasonable and affordable format, since according to the brand it will have a starting price of around €40,000. With a body halfway between an SUV and a sedan coupe, this kind of crossover should be on our streets in a couple of years, although the reservation process is already open.
According to the brand, the Lightyear 2 will have a real autonomy of approximately 800 kilometers, also allowing the transformation of solar energy into electricity thanks to the solar panel system installed both on the roof and on the hood of the body. There is now the question of what will happen with the reservations of the Lightyear 0 that were already signed: the little more than 900 units that were originally going to be manufactured were already in fact sold, And while the Lightyear 0 production pause is initially just that, a pause, everything seems to indicate that the Lightyear 0 won’t be hitting the streets for a long, long time.
