Lightyear, a pioneer in clean mobility, introduced the first long-range solar electric car. The Lightyear One prototype was presented to a select audience of investors, customers, partners and press at the break of dawn in the Theater Hangaar in Katwijk, the Netherlands.

“This moment represents a new era of driving,” said Lex Hoefsloot, CEO and co-founder of Lightyear. “Two years of dreaming, thinking and working hard have led to this milestone, which is a giant leap towards achieving our mission of making clean mobility available to everyone.”

Lightyear was founded in 2016 by alumni of Solar Team Eindhoven, which won the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in 2013, 2015 and 2017. Since the launch, Lightyear has received several awards, grants and support from key investors.

“This allowed us to develop a working prototype for the first long-range solar car in just two years. We have already sold over a hundred vehicles. With Lightyear One, we want to show that our technology enabled us to build one of the most sustainable cars on the market that also offers great convenience.”

Lightyear One has been engineered coming from a radically different perspective. “We all have a performance background and with that we focus relentlessly on to optimize efficiency and safety”. Lightyear started from scratch, following not convention but only the laws of physics, to purposefully design a car that “gets the most out of every ray of sunshine”. Hoefsloot continued,

“We are solving these issues with what we call ultra-efficiency. On one hand, that will lead to an exceptional range of 725 km (WLTP) on a relatively small battery. On the other hand, it can charge directly from the sun because its energy consumption is much lower, generating up to 20,000 km worth of energy per year. Moreover, all of the charging options out there become easier to use because you get a lot more range for the same amount of energy charged.

Lightyear will be ramping up production of the Lightyear One in 2021. The first 100 cars have already been reserved. Via the Lightyear website, buyers can now reserve one of the 500 Lightyear Ones for a reservation fee of €119,000 (expected delivery in 2021).