Lightyear, the pioneer of solar electric vehicles, has reached an important milestone in technological achievement by covering a range of 710 km with its Lightyear One prototype car. Never before has an electric vehicle driven such a long range on a relatively small battery. 

“After four years of hard work and internal development, this is a very important technical and technological milestone. It confirms the performance of our patented technology and really shows that we are able to deliver on our promise to introduce the most efficient electric vehicle. This prototype has a range of over 440 miles with an energy consumption of just 137 Wh/Mile at 53 miles per hour. Even the most economical electric cars on the market today consume about 50% more energy at this relatively low speed. This milestone is a nice confirmation of the scalability of our business model. We are confident that we can achieve similar levels of energy consumption at highway speed in the coming months. By reducing the energy consumption per kilometer of an EV, you can deliver a lot of driving range with a small battery. Because batteries are the most expensive part of an EV, you can lower the purchase price of the car and you get affordable electric cars with a lot of range that don't need a lot of charging. Low-energy cars can also benefit much more from adding solar cells to the car and charging about 75 miles on a sunny day.”

The prototype car was tested at the Aldenhoven Testing Center in Germany, to complete a driving cycle traveling at 53 miles per hour on a single 60 kWh battery charge. The integral test ranged from validating the yield of the solar panels, the battery performance, the energy consumption of the cooling system to the functioning of the in-wheel motors and the software that controls the solar car. 

The full drive cycle test performed is a critical step to verify and validate all assumptions about the vehicle's performance. In addition to the validation of the car's technical performance, other upcoming tests will relate to the homologation process, such as the crash tests and an official WLTP driving cycle test. 

Lightyear's mission is to make clean mobility available to everyone and everywhere and is preparing for the industrialization and production of Lightyear One. The concept of a long-distance solar car offers a huge opportunity to change mobility, so you can drive for months without charging. An exclusive series of 946 Lightyear Ones will go into production in the first half of 2022. Lightyear wants to appeal to the mass market from 2024, according to Lightyear on their website.

Photo above: Image bank Lightyear.

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