Sono Motors has fetched more than 20,000 reservations from customers for its Sion car, a solar electric vehicle (SEV) during the unveiling of the final series production design.
Sono Sion, the world’s first-ever solar electric vehicle meant for mass production, has fetched more than 20,000 reservations from customers.
Introduced in 2017, Sono Sion claims to have garnered over 20,000 bookings as of September 1, 2022. Sono Motors claimed that it had received an average payment of around 2,000 euros for each private reservation.
Sono Motors also said that the asking price for the Sion is 25,126 euros. The German electric vehicle manufacturer believes that the Sono Sion would become the world’s first Solar EV for the masses with this price tag.
The Solar Electric Vehicle, or SEV, as the automaker dubs it, is expected to enter production in the second half of 2023. It will be produced at Valmet Automotive’s facility in Finland.
The automaker further added that after the ramp-up period, it aims to produce around 257,000 units of Sion EVs within seven years.
The specialty of Sono Sion is that every flat surface of this car comes equipped with solar panels, which is entirely different from the Genesis Electrified G80, which comes with a roof-mounted solar panel for electricity generation.
The Sono Sion gets solar panels on the hood, the roof, the fenders, the quarter panels and the hatch as well. The front fascia doesn’t come equipped with solar cells in an attempt to make the replacement cost cheap in case of an accident.
Sono Motors claims that the Sion comes equipped with a total of 456 solar cells, which is capable of generating enough electricity to power the vehicle to run 112 km distance on a single charge. The range could double or more in areas where the sun frequents the sky, claims Sono Motors.
The Sion EV gets a 54 kWh battery pack that is powerful enough to propel the car up to 305 km on a single charge.
The EV maker has capped the charging capacity for this small battery at a mere 75 kW.
It also comes with bidirectional charging technology that allows the car to turn into a mobile power station with up to 2.7 kW power output.