Lightyear will soon launch a new $40,000 solar-powered car
March 15, 2023 By Awanish Kumar
(Image Credit Google)
Image credit : Lightyear Solar Car
All this time we have dreamed of a car that could be powered by the sun, but finally, these dreams have come to fruition. The Lightyear 2, a solar-powered electric car seems to have zoomed right from our dreams and into reality.
This magnificent beast allows you to escape long lines and gas bills while ramping up to 450 miles on a single charge. The Lightyear 2 is a dream car with solar panels covering five square meters of the roof that is capable of recovering up to 12 km of range every hour.
Last year, the Lightyear One created a buzz as a solar-powered car that was capable of running and even charging itself with the sun alone. However, it turned out to be a prototype for the actual finished model of Lightyear 0.
At CES 2023, Lightyear revealed the next-generation Lightyear 2, although no one’s certain what happened to version 1.
"All the learnings — and those are a lot — from Lightyear 0 we're applying to Lightyear 2," Alexandre Hoefsloot, CEO and Co-Founder of Lightyear states. "This is still going to take two and a half years to get to production ... you know automotive. It takes a long time," he said.
Lightyear also claims that the solar panels can deliver up to 44 miles a day which might not sound impressive but in the Netherlands, drivers who can cover that distance per day could go a couple of months between charges in the summer. The Lightyear 0 can also easily travel 388 miles between charges.
“Starting production of Lightyear 0, the first solar car, brings us a big step closer to our mission of clean mobility for everyone, everywhere,” Lex Hoefsloot said in a statement back in December 2022. “We may be the first to achieve this, but I certainly hope we aren’t the last.”
The interior of the Lightyear 2 isn’t all that interesting with a big LCD panel but no instrument cluster and almost nothing else beyond the wheel. A tiny display between the steering wheel and the windshield shows speed, range, and other specs you require.
"The target price of less than $40K? To hit that with a completely novel concept? It's a challenge. So anything you see here in the interior is also focused on how do we get to those cost levels," Hoefsloot said.
By Awanish Kumar
I keep abreast of the latest technological developments to bring you unfiltered information about gadgets.
