The solar car Sono Sion will not be on the road. The Munich start-up Sono Motors announced this decision on Friday. Originally, the company wanted to take its time until the end of the month and collect around 100 million euros from private customers and investors in order to bring the project closer to series production. But now this attempt was stopped a few days before that date. The electric car, which is also supposed to be charged via solar cells in the body, will not exist – at least not from Sono Motors. 300 of the approximately 400 employees will lose their jobs.
This decision had been indicated over the past few months – even if the two Sono founders Laurin Hahn and Jona Christians always tried to spread optimism. A crowdfunding campaign saved the company from bankruptcy in 2019. However, experts from the financial and automotive sectors have long been skeptical that the start-up will be able to raise enough money again – and whether the plan to build a complete car is not the wrong approach. The company’s price has collapsed since its IPO in the USA in November 2021, and the share has only been a penny stock for months.
Eleven years ago, Laurin Hahn (left) and Jona Christians worked on a car with solar integration for the first time in a Munich garage.
(Photo: Sono Motors)
Again and again we heard that investors, unlike the founders, saw the real value of Sono Motors in solar technology – i.e. in knowing how to integrate solar cells into vehicles as invisibly and robustly as possible and connect them to the on-board electronics. The very expensive plan to develop your own car deterred many potential financiers. “Given the continuing instability of the financial markets, we were unable to convince investors to invest in a capital-intensive hardware product,” says Sono co-founder Hahn. And: “We underestimated how difficult it is to raise the necessary funds.”
Sono Motors is now taking the path that many experts thought was right years ago: dropping car building and concentrating on supplying other companies with solar solutions. Sono Motors already has 23 partners in this line of business, such as the truck manufacturers MAN and Scania or the Munich transport company. Sono’s solar kits can be used, for example, on the roofs of trucks or buses.
However, the business is still under construction. Not only a large part of the money, but also the employees depended on their own solar car project. As a result, the company is now conducting “a significant cost savings program.” Three quarters of the employees have to leave Sono Motors. Thomas Hausch, the manager responsible for operational business, will also be stepping down from his position on the board, but will still be supporting the company with the restructuring.
There have already been around 45,000 reservations and pre-orders for the Sono Sion, including several thousand private customers who have paid all or part of the 30,000 euros for the car in advance. The company promises to pay you back the money over the next two years. Several installments plus a bonus are planned.