German start-up, Sono Motors, has terminated its Sion electric vehicle program, it announced today. That means that the company will focus exclusively on the production of solar panels for automotive applications from now on, and will forget its ambitions to create its own passenger vehicle.
The company’s CEOs and co-founders, Jona Christians and Laurin Hahn, first revealed to the public that the automotive department was in dire financial straits in December 2022. In a video bluntly titled, “We Failed,” the pair said that their backers were asking them to shutter the EV program, to focus instead on their higher margin solar panel business.
As part of the video, though, they launched a campaign to attempt to save their EV, the Sion. Initially a 50-day challenge to try and secure 3,500 new fully paid reservations, in January the company said it would be extending the campaign until February 28, as “talks with potential investors progress.”
More: Sono Motors CEOs Say ‘We Failed’, Now Want Fans To Save Solar EV By Reserving It For $3k
Now, it seems that those talks have broken down, because four days ahead of schedule, the company has ended the campaign, and will be shuttering its automotive department. With that, it will lay off about 300 employees and its COO, Thomas Hausch, has stepped down.
“Even though we had to terminate our original passion project, the Sion program, shifting our entire focus to business-to-business solar solutions provides us with an opportunity to continue to create innovative products in the solar space,” said Hahn. “It was a difficult decision and despite more than 45,000 reservations and pre-orders for the Sion, we were compelled to react to the ongoing financial market instability and streamline our business.”
Indeed, Sono Motors claims that 90 percent of its funding needs for 2023 were generated by the Sion program. Now, it will focus on developing integrated solar technology for partners such as Mitsubishi Europe, Scania, MAN, and others across 10 countries in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Going forward, it says it will focus specifically on buses, including the introduction of a kit that will allow older vehicles to be retrofitted with solar panels that it plans to introduce later this year.
For those who contributed to the #savesion campaign, Sono says it has a reimbursement plan that will be implemented in installments over the next two years. The company says that despite killing the Sion program, it still believes in the idea of a solar-panel-covered EV, and will support third-party OEMs in their endeavors to bring them to market.
