Dutch solar car scale-up Lightyear has kicked off production of its Lightyear 0 sedan in Uusikaupunki, southwest of Finland, at contract manufacturer Valmet Automotive. Valmet plans to produce one vehicle per week, for the time being, pushing up production in 2023.

The goal is to produce only 946 vehicles of the Lightyear 0, a symbolic number referring to the length of a lightyear, 946 trillion kilometers. The question is: who’s going to buy the world’s first production solar cars at 250 000 euros?

Challenging milestone

After six years of development, the company scaled up to 600 employees and convinced Swedish hypercar builder Christian Koenigsegg, among others, to be part of this somewhat risky adventure. Lex Hoefsloot, co-founder and CEO of Lightyear, is well aware this is the most challenging milestone: bringing new technology to the market.

“The start of production of the Lightyear 0, the very first solar car, brings us a big step closer to our mission to bring clean mobility to everyone and everywhere. We may be the first, but I certainly hope not the last,” Hoefsloot adds in the press release.

Student’s dream

It started as a student’s dream more than six years ago with a Dutch group of enthusiastic Solar Team Eindhoven engineering students who wanted to prove cars powered by the sun could become a commercially viable technology and founded their own company.

For years, student teams from all over the world have been competing with each other in solar car races, with Dutch and Belgian teams among the best teams in Europe, outclassing each other alternatively.

Just weeks ago, the BluePoint Atlas solar car of the Belgian Agoria Team covered 1 051 kilometers on pure solar energy in 12 hours, breaking the previous record of the Dutch Solar Team from Delft (924 km in 12 h) with 127 kilometers.

From 150 000 to 250 000 euros

But these superlight one-seater racing vehicles are far from a daily usable, sleek five-seats sedan with a 474-liter baggage trunk like Lightyear is now building. The prototype, Lightyear One, became the Lightyear 0 (zero), with the initial list price of €150 000 beefed up to a whopping €250 000, and production, initially to start in 2021, was ultimately delayed until now.

Thanks to Lightyear’s patented technology, the Lightyear 0 has five square meters of double-curved solar panels. It consists of 782 IBC monocrystalline silicon solar cells arranged in 28 groups and can provide up to 70 km of additional range per day in sunny regions like southern Spain.

The car has a 60 kWh battery pack aboard, contributing 350 kg to the 1 575 kg total weight of the vehicle, which is made to a great extent out of carbon fiber. That battery ensures 625 km of (WLTP) range on a single charge. On a very sunny day, this could be pushed up to 695 km with solar panels.

World’s most aerodynamic production car

With a drag coefficient (Cd) of 0.175, this car cuts through the air like a warm knife through butter. It is now officially the world’s most aerodynamic production car, as proven in a wind tunnel in Germany in September of this year.

That sleek profile and its four electric motors in the wheels avoid transmission friction losses, resulting in power consumption of 10,5 kWh/100 km at 110 km per hour driving on a highway. That’s more than half of the average EV today at those speeds.

11 000 km on free solar power

Lightyear sketches a dream scenario of 11 000 pure solar kilometers a year or driving up to seven months without plug-charging. That is when living in Spain or California and only doing 35 km on average a day during Spring and Summer, as commented in the tiny print of the Lightyear’s leaflet.

Used in and around a city like Amsterdam, the Dutch makers claim, it should be possible to get a range of  1 000 km before needing to plug in for charging. Provided you only drive some 50 km daily commuting to work, for instance.

Eight years of warranty

So what are we waiting for to order one of the 943 Lightyear 0 cars that start to roll off production lines in Finland? The ‘car configurator’ to assemble your dream car and order it online is probably one of the most user-friendly you have ever seen.

Just pick one of the ten (wrapped) finishing colors and specify whether you like it with or without the rear wheel ‘Aero Covers’ to save an additional percentage on energy. Just one price: €250 000, VAT not included.

What’s included are eight years of warranty or 200 000 km, but you don’t have to be a mathematical wizard to see that might not be long enough to win back your investment with 11 000 free solar kilometers per year. Maybe the Lightyear 2, which Hoefsloot sees possible at €30 000 in a few years, will make that sunny dream come through?