The solar tech company Sono Group N.V. (Sono Motors) announced it has signed a purchase order with a second passenger car manufacturer, one of the 10 largest in the world.
The scope of the order is delivery of solar body panels for one vehicle, so that, together with Sono Motors, the OEM is able to explore solar integration into their cars.
The Company announced the first order from a passenger car manufacturer in December last year. This brings the Company’s total number of customers and partners for its solar technology to 25, a significant increase from 10 partners at the time of the Company’s IPO 15 months ago.
The Company has developed solar power electronics for high-voltage automotive use cases, such as passenger cars. Sono Motors has specialized in a unique manufacturing method to seamlessly integrate solar cells into polymer to be used for the exterior of a passenger vehicle.
Solar charging allows more convenience for the vehicle owner, less dependency on battery charging infrastructures and a reduction in running costs compared to ordinary BEVs.
Car manufacturers and fleet operators may use the Company’s proprietary technology in their own products to retrofit existing vehicles, or for new production vehicles, to extend the range of BEVs or to comply with emission regulations.
“We see a whole industry moving towards solar integration into vehicles. We believe we are at the forefront with our proprietary polymer-based solar technology for passenger vehicles” states Laurin Hahn, co-founder and CEO of Sono Motors.
“Additionally, we believe that the steep increase in electric vehicle sales and the relatively slower increase in charging stations will create a bottleneck for the adoption of electric vehicles on a larger scale. We believe that even within the next few years, many people living in apartments without private access to charging stations will be reluctant to buy electric vehicles due to uncertainty whether they will be able to find relevant charging options. This will put even more focus on electric vehicles with solar integration.”
Sono Motors is currently working as a development partner or supplier with customers in Europe and the United States. Customers include CHEREAU, Kögel, and Volkswagen subsidiary Scania. Going forward, Sono Motors intends to focus specifically on retrofitting and integrating its solar technology onto third party vehicles in four core industries – passenger vehicles, buses, refrigerated vehicles, and recreational vehicles. The Company is currently scaling up its technology, starting with the introduction of the next generation of its retrofit solution for cleaner public transportation – the ‘Solar Bus Kit’.
(Sono Motors)
