Lightyear 0 History

Unveiled in June 2019 under the name Lightyear One, the car was conceived by the founders of Solar Team Eindhoven as proof that integrated solar panels could meaningfully extend the range of a production electric vehicle. The design — a large five-seat fastback with the bonnet, roof, and boot lid clad in 5 m² (54 ft²) of monocrystalline silicon solar cells — was developed with styling input from Granstudio in Turin. Its drag coefficient of Cd 0.175 was claimed to be the lowest of any production car at the time. A 60 kWh battery fed four in-wheel electric hub motors producing a combined 130 kW (170 bhp); the solar array was rated to add up to 70 km of range per day in summer conditions, giving a WLTP total range of 625 km (388 miles).

The production car was renamed Lightyear 0 in 2021 — the zero denoting a carbon footprint ambition — and manufacturing was contracted to Valmet Automotive in Finland. First customer deliveries took place in December 2022 at a price of €250,000 excl. VAT, a sharp increase from the original 2019 reservation price of €119,000 excl. VAT. Only approximately a dozen examples reached customers before production halted.

In January 2023 Lightyear announced that Atlas Technologies B.V., its manufacturing subsidiary responsible for the Lightyear 0, would be allowed to enter bankruptcy proceedings as the company had been unable to secure sufficient additional funding. The intellectual property and brand were preserved by the parent entity and in September 2024 the company received €10 million in new investment to continue as a B2B solar-integration technology supplier — no longer building cars under its own name.