The final design of the Sion EV, a solar electric vehicle, was unveiled this week.
It has been a long and bumpy road for SonoMotors, a journey that included a couple of campaigns, a near insolvency and a debut on the stock market.
The solar-power fruits of those tumultuous labors were on display at the community event. The solar-powered EV was the center of attention. The Solar Bus Kit, a series of solar panels that are designed to be retrofitted onto public buses, suggests that the company has more ambitious plans.
Can Sono Motor's EV be sold at volume? How?
Delivery of the Sion to customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is Sono's goal. The company didn't give any information on how many Sions would be delivered. A company spokesman said that it expects to make 43,000 Sions per year with a production capacity of 257,000 over seven years.
The most well-funded EV startup had trouble making it to production recently. Since going public in November last year, Sono has had to contend with a number of challenges, from a falling stock price to changing manufacturing partners, and its path forward to production and delivery will likely be bumpy given current market and supply chain uncertainty.
This company is doing a lot of things.
The Sion will have integrated solar half-cells that will collect power from the sun and enable self-sufficiency. The image is from SonoMotors.
The Sion is a five-door, family-friendly car that will sell for 25, 126. The solar half-cells will collect power from the sun and allow self-sufficiency on shorter journeys. The company says that the constant feed of solar should suffice to take care of most urban commuters.
A car has a range of about 190 miles. The energy generated by the solar cells is expected to extend that by an average of 70 miles. The Sion is built with a technology that allows commuters to use the energy stored in the battery to power their homes.
A cleaner looking vehicle is one of the enhancements to the final design.
There are new headlights, a new daylight strip, rear lights, a rear camera, and a new charging lid in the front of the car. The door handles have the words "made to be shared" in them, a nod to Sono's hope to get this car into fleets.
Sono says the number of paid reservations has gone up. If all reservations result in sales, that would mean a net sales volume of over 500 million dollars. Sono could have over 42 million in the bank with an average down payment of 2,225.
If those numbers don't add up, it's because the price of the Sion has changed over time and earlier backers are grandfathered into their original prices.
outsourcing its vehicle's manufacture and distribution has brought costs down Sono was going to partner with NEVS, the Swedish EV manufacturer that acquired the assets of the bankrupt Saab Automobile in 2012 The parent firm of NEVS is deep in debt and trying to sell the company.
Sono switched gears in April and signed a contract with a new partner, Valmet Automotive, which manufactures in Finland.
Sono has a solar bus kit that has 8 square-meters of solar panels. The image is from SonoMotors.
Some of the emissions can be taken out of the equation with the help of Sono's solar bus kit.
According to the company, the kit can save up to 1,500 liters of diesel and up to 4 tons of CO2 per bus annually. The total size of the solar panels is about 8 square meters. The bus subsystems can be powered by that solar energy.
The payback time depends on the sunniness of days in operation and fuel prices.
The new bus kit is part of Sono's plan to license its solar body panel technology to other companies as an additional source of revenue.
Sono has letters of intent, pilots and prototypes for 19 companies that are implementing the company's solar technology on a variety of vehicle architectures. Sono is working with the Reefer Group to build a solar trailer.
During the company's earnings call in September, more details will be shared on the B2B solar business which is generating revenue. Since its debut, Sono's stock has lost nearly all of its value, so the company will need another source of revenue as it ramps up production next year.
After the IPO was priced at $15., Sono Group opened at $20.06. The market closed on its first day with shares hitting a high. The slide in Sono Group's stock price continued even after the company revealed the production version of the Sion
There has been a lot of interest in EV startup.
In May, Sono closed its previously announced follow-on offering of 10 million ordinary shares, with an additional 1.5 million shares available for the underwriters to purchase at a discount.
Sono said it gained $40 million in gross proceeds from this offering, which it used to fund the start of production of its Sion, but investors are likely to see the offering as one that devalues shares to an even greater degree.
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