Sion bites the dust and with it the solar electric car dream

It's not like we didn't see it coming, but Sono Motors threw the towel in together with 300 of its employees. Despite the company having over 45,000 orders and despite its crowdfunding campaign Save Sion, and having raised €330 million by going public on Nasdaq and raising additional €30 million through convertible bonds.

The Sion was a bright beam of sunlight (pun intended) among the electric car manufacturers. It had everything going for it - the car was relatively affordable and it charged itself, heck - it even worked in Germany! The company adopted the image of David going against the Goliath of automotive establishment and Sion promised the freedom from charging cables and it even came with moss instead of particulate filter - it doesn’t get any more greener than that.

So what happened? We all wanted a car that charges itself, one that we are allowed to tinker with and fix ourselves when it goes wrong. Sono Motors was spending tens of millions of Euros left and right, but forgot to do the math and realize the technology isn't there.

We all want an electric car, we all want it to charge itself and we all want to save the planet, but the reality is solar charging can't be anything more than a rounding error. Promises are easily made, but once it comes to delivery the laws of physics are cruel like that.

It is true, we don’t need to look far for a similar outcome and a similar idea - Lightyear Zero. When the company came up with the plan, the world was in awe. Sure, the car looked a bit awkward but it was miles better looking than Sion, so it's not like the design killed this one.

Then Lightyear dropped the €250,000 asking price on the table and the whole world went silent. Not in awe, in shock. The fallout was swift, 6 months after announcing the production of Lightyear Zero, the company asked for voluntary bankruptcy because despite hundreds of millions of Euros (sound familiar?) of investments, the idea simply wasn’t viable.

The company salvaged what it could and now is trying to sell us a €40,000 solar electric car that looks way better than the Lightyear Zero. We'd be shocked if it doesn't follow the same fate.

So, is the solar electric car dream over? The reality is it was never possible.

The only real losers here are those who put down deposits. In both cases it will be years before people see their money back, in a worst case scenario there will be no money at all. Both companies will carry on with their business under new names and try to implement solar energy into vehicles in their own ways.

Sono Motors will carry on as a solar panel supplier to its investors - Mitsubishi, Scania and MAN among the better known. Those investors are responsible for pulling the plug on Sion, they saw it as a pointless money-draining venture. Can you really blame them?

Perhaps in a decade technology will develop and we can really live the self-charging car dream, perhaps it will never happen. But it certainly isn't happening now and anyone that promises you that is merely trying to part you and your money.