Hours after posting its Q3 2022 results, Sono Motors CEOs and cofounders Jona Christians and Laurin Hahn offered a public statement outlining the financial struggles of its Sion solar EV program, which now teeters on the edge of being scrapped so the company can focus on its revenue-generating B2B solar technology business. Before it gives up however, the Sono team has launched a 50 day campaign called #saveSion which implores its community of reservation holders to commit to a solar EV purchase to help kick off a 12-month journey to get the Sion into production.
Today’s news is particularly disheartening since we have covered Sono Motors for several years now, as it has progressed from garage prototypes to a series validation Sion solar EV which debuted this past summer, complete with its most sleek solar panel technology yet.
To date, Sono has approximately 21,000 direct-to-consumer orders for the Sion, in addition to about 22,000 B2B orders. In six short years, the solar EV company has not only built a production-intent mass-market solar EV but also a community of fans and potential customers across Europe.
Although the company’s B2B solar technology business continues to flourish, the Sion program has stumbled recently, to the point that Sono may have to abandon it altogether in order to survive. But the fight is not over. Sono’s robust reservation book shows there’s a clear appetite for its solar EV, and its cofounders are humbly leaning on that community to help bring the Sion to fruition.
Purchase commitments that include robust down payments from potential customers over the next 50 days could at the very least, give Sono enough time to acquire additional funding to deliver the Sion by 2024.
Today, Sono has launched the #saveSion campaign.
Sono Motors leaves Sion’s fate in hands of its community
Following today’s Q3 financials showing great progress with its B2B solar business, the Sono Motors cofounders released a public statement sharing the recent struggles of the Sion program, relaying a situation in which equity financing has become increasingly challenging:
Sono Motors has achieved important operational and commercial milestones throughout the year. These include signing promising partnerships in our solar business and presenting our first Sion series-validation vehicles. At the same time, financial markets have experienced a negative downturn, with many tech companies losing up to 90+% of their respective market cap, and shares in mobility tech companies have been hit particularly hard. As a result, financing our Sion program through equity has become increasingly challenging and dilutive. Raising money takes much longer than expected, since we failed to explain to investors why the Sion has the potential to become the world’s first affordable solar-electric vehicle and that there is a huge demand for it.
Rather than simply abandon its solar-powered child immediately, Sono is launching one last ditch effort to (partially) solve its current financial dilemma in the form of a campaign it hopes will go viral and bring enough of its reservations to fruition to keep Sion development going.
The start-up explained that its roughly 21K private reservations equate to about 465 million euros, in addition to another 600 million euros in potential revenue from business commitments. Of those approximately 43,000 reservations in its backlog, Sono looks to receive payment on just 3,500 of them over the next 50 days to #saveSion.
In 2019, the start-up launched a crowdfunding campaign that raised over 50 million euros in 50 days, but this latest plea for financial support from its community of solar believers comes at a much different time. Sono Motors is now significantly larger, the Sion is further along, and Sono has a separate solar business pillar it can prioritize. All that said, 3,500 sales of a 25,000 Solar EV remains the target, but will only get Sono so far. Per the release:
Developing a car usually costs up to 1 billion euro. We’ve come close to pre-series with spending less than half of that money. #saveSion is our non-dilutive solution for funding the majority of the Sion program and the first part of a broader funding strategy for the next 12 months, which includes of course the capital markets. We believe we will be able to continue to acquire more funding and continue to pay the remaining machinery, tooling, and production setup to achieve the planned pre-series production in 2023 and make it to SOP in the first quarter of 2024.
Sono is offering those reservation holders who commit to a Sion purchase a discount of up 3,000 euros – the more you put down as a down payment, the more you save on the final price. Those committed customers will only be held to payment if and when the 50-day campaign proves successful.
Should the community funding raise fail, Sono Motors says it will turn its attention entirely to its B2B solar business. The company states its current and expected liquidity should allow for a pivot to solar tech only, so the start-up itself is not in dire straits. However, the fate of the Sion is certainly in peril.
Reservations can currently be made in 27 different European regions, but unfortunately, US consumers cannot join the movement. You can learn more at the #saveSion dedicated page.
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Capable of delivering up to 1,200 kW of power to get electric commercial trucks back on the road in minutes, the new ABB MCS1200 Megawatt Charging System is part of an ecosystem of electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) that ABB’s bringing to this year’s ACT Expo.
ABB E-mobility is using the annual clean trucking conference to showcase the expansion of its EVSE portfolio with three all-new charger families: the field-upgradable A200/300 All-in-One chargers, the MCS1200 Megawatt Charging System for heavy-duty vehicles shown (above), and the ChargeDock Dispenser for flexible depot charging.
The company said its new product platform was built by applying a computer system-style domain separation to charger design, fundamentally improving subsystem development and creating a clear path forward for site and system expansion. In other words, ABB is selling a system with both future-proofing and enhanced dependability baked in.
“We have built a system by logically separating a charger into four distinct subsystems … each functioning as an independent subsystem,” explains Michael Halbherr, CEO of ABB E-mobility. “Unlike conventional chargers, where a user interface failure can disable the entire system, our architecture ensures charging continues even if the screen or payment system encounters issues. Moreover, we can improve each subsystem at its own pace without having to change the entire system.”
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The parts of ABB’s new EVSE portfolio that have been made public so far have already been recognized for design excellence, with the A400 winning the iF Gold Award and both the A400 and C50 receiving Red Dot Design Awards.
New ABB chargers seem pretty, good
ABB’s good-looking family; via ABB.
ABB says the systemic separation of its EVSE enhances both reliability and quality, while making deployed chargers easier to diagnose and repair, in less time. Each of the chargers’ subsystems can be tested, diagnosed, and replaced independently, allowing for quick on-site repairs and update cycles tailored to the speed of each systems’ innovation. The result is 99% uptime and a more future-proof product.
“The EV charging landscape is evolving beyond point products for specific use cases,” continued Halbherr. “By implementing this modular approach with the majority of our R&D focused on modular platforms rather than one-off products … it reduces supply chain risks, while accelerating development cycles and enabling deeper collaboration with critical suppliers.”
Key markets ABB is chasing
HVC 360 Charge Dock Dispenser depot deployment; via ABB.
PUBLIC CHARGING – with the award winning A400 being the optimal fit for high power charging from highway corridors to urban locations, the latest additions to the A-Series All-in-One chargers offer a field-upgradable architecture allowing operators to start with the A200 (200kW) with the option to upgrade to 300kW or 400kW as demand grows. This approach offers scalability and protects customer investment, leading to Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) savings over 10 years.
PUBLIC TRANSIT AND FLEET – the new Charge Dock Dispenser – in combination with the already in market available HVC 360 – simplifies depot charging with a versatile solution that supports pantograph-, roof-, and pedestal charging options with up to 360kW of shared power and 150m/490 ft installation flexibility between cabinet and dispensers. The dispenser maintains up to 500A output.
HEAVY TRUCKS – building the matching charging infrastructure for commercial vehicles and fleets represents a critical innovation frontier on our journey to electrify transportation. Following extensive collaboration with industry-leading truck OEMs, the MCS1200 Megawatt Charging System delivers up to 1,200kW of continuous power — 20% more energy transfer than 1MW systems — providing heavy-duty vehicles with purpose-built single-outlet design for the energy they need during mandatory driver breaks. To support other use cases, such as CCS truck charging, a dual CCS and MCS option will also be available.
ABB says that the result of its new approach are chargers that offer 99% plus uptime — a crucial statistic for commercial charging operations and a key factor to ensuring customer satisfaction. The new ABB E-mobility EVSE product family will be on display for the first time at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo (ACT Expo) in Anaheim, California next week, then again at Power2Drive in Munich, Germany, from May 7-9.
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Along with Tennessee Tech, Tennessee-based ultralight aircraft company Whisper Aero has secured a $500,000 grant to help advance the company’s innovative electric jet motor concept off the drawing board and onto the testing phase.
Earlier this month, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) announced plans to award $500,000 to Tennessee Tech and Whisper Aero through the Transportation Network Growth Opportunity (TNGO) initiative.
“We look forward to using these award dollars to place students in internships working directly with Whisper Aero leaders,” said Tennessee Tech President Phil Oldham. “By learning from an electric propulsion innovator like Whisper Aero, our students will gain invaluable perspective and can take what they have learned in the classroom and apply it right here in Tennessee.”
The grant will see a Whisper Aero glider fitted with a pair of the company’s eQ250 electric-powered jet “propulsors” for UltraQuiet flight. Tennessee Tech faculty and students will carry out copper-bird ground testing to ensure the safe integration of engines, batteries, and controllers, and kickstart Tennessee Tech’s new Crossville Mobility Incubator.
Whisper Aero’s main claim to fame is its innovative UltraQuiet WhisperDrive (above). It’s effectively an electrically spun ducted fan jet engine that uses a large number of stiff composite fan blades inside a lightweight, acoustically treated duct. With so many blades, the Whisper Aero propulsor can push more air than a conventional prop while spinning much more slowly. As such, the “blade passage frequency” moves up to more than 16,000 Hz – outside the range of most human hearing but not, supposedly, high enough to freak out the beagles.
The Whisper Aero ultralight is effectively an Aériane Swift3 glider fitted with a pair of Whisper’s eQ250 propulsors, each capable of up to 80 lbs. of thrust. The Ultralight has a wingspan of over 40 ft with a maximum L/D of 35:1 and can be stressed to a design loading of +6/-4g, making it capable of some pretty impressive acrobatic feats.
The Swift3 glider is designed for a low speed, low power cruising speed of 45–55 knots with “just” 6.5 hp. Power-off glides from a few hundred feet showed a low sink rate, and a climb rate of 1,250 ft/min with full self-launching power (in other words: the Whisper glider doesn’t have to be towed by a launch vehicle, like a conventional ultralight glider).
Quiet cool
Dual WhisperDrive fans deliver ~160 lbf of thrust; via Whisper Aero.
Range under full power is about 109 miles with current battery tech, but it’s expected that range under the latest EPiC 2.0 energy batteries would rise to nearly 170 miles.
Nathan Millecam, CEO of Electric Power System, said, “EPiC 2.0’s leap in energy density and thermal performance has enabled a significant increase in range, a clear validation of our next-gen cell technology. We are impressed by what the Whisper team continues to achieve in advancing electric aviation.”
The press release concludes explaining that flight tests are expected to show that the Whisper Aero glider can be flown, “a few hundred feet away from neighborhoods without any disturbances, while carrying a 220 lbs. payload with full range,” which is all kind of ominous in today’s political climate, but still pretty neat from a purely tech perspective.
With support from TNECD’s Transportation Network Growth Opportunity (TNGO) initiative, Tennessee Tech University and Whisper Aero are partnering to advance next-generation propulsion technology in the aerospace industry. This collaboration will enhance aerospace research and workforce development, ensuring Tennessee remains a leader in cutting-edge mobility solutions.
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A Tesla Cybertruck owner believed Elon Musk’s claims that the Cybertruck would be able to “act as a boat” and “cross rivers”, and he got his $100,000 stuck because of it.
Elon Musk has often made claims about how Tesla vehicles could float and briefly serve as a boat in the past.
We have never been taken too seriously because Tesla’s warranty states something different about taking the vehicle into water.
However, the CEO doubled down on the claim specifically for the Cybertruck.
Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes and even seas that aren’t too choppy.
The CEO added that the goal is for a Cybertruck to be able to cross the water between SpaceX’s Starbase and South Padre Island in Texas, which is about 360 meters (1,100 feet).
We have been taking the Cybertruck more seriously with water because we learned that Tesla built a ‘wade mode’ for the truck to be able to go into the water. Tesla says the mode increases the ride height to the max and temporarily “pressurizes the battery pack.”
The problem is that it is activated through the off-roading mode, which is not covered under Tesla’s warranty – so we are taking everything with a grain of salt.
Whenever Tesla’s warranty contradicts what Musk says, it is better to follow to the warranty.
A Tesla Cybertruck owner in Truckee, California, appears not to have received this sage advice since they activated the wade mode and attempted to get into the water.
The Cybertruck owner quickly got stuck. The local California Highway Patrol (CHP) shared some pictures of the aftermath (via Facebook):
CHP Truckee helped with the recovery and commented on the incident:
Cybertruck activated “Wade Mode”… and waded a bit too far… We’re all for testing boundaries… but maybe not the waterline. Remember folks, “Wade Mode” isn’t “Submarine Mode.” If your plans include exploring the great outdoors, make sure to know your limits and the terrain.
There’s no detail on the damage to the Cybertruck, if any.
At the risk of stating the obvious, this is clearly more of a user error than a Cybertruck problem.
I think the verdict is clear: Cybertruck is far from the best electric pickup truck for off-roading.
However, in general, you shouldn’t expect a truck to get out of water on a muddy bank.
I think a lot of Cybertruck owners are new to trucking and off-roading, and they are making the truck look worse than it is at off-roading.
If you want to take your Cybertruck off-road, I recommend to first go with an off-roading guide that can help avoid some simple mistakes like this.
Also, in general, don’t take Elon Musk’s claims at face value when he says that Tesla vehicles can do something that sounds like an exaggeration. It probably is an exaggeration.
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