Lightyear 2 waitlist goes live, 500+ mile range solar EV priced below $40K for US customers
Less than a month after kicking off production of its flagship solar EV the 0, Lightyear has begun teasing images of its second, much more affordable model, the Lightyear 2. Following an announcement this morning, Lightyear has opened up its waitlist to pre-order the Lightyear 2, which will be sold in the US, UK, and Europe. It promises to deliver over 500 miles of range on a single charge with the help of our Sun and start at an MSRP below $40,000.
Lightyear is a Dutch solar EV company that we’ve been following for several years, due in part to its bold promises of extended range vehicles with sleek designs, but also at affordable pricing. The startup had long promised to deliver its Lightyear 0 to market, a solar electric sedan that inevitably arrived as the most aerodynamic production car ever made.
We got a chance it take the Lightyear 0 for a spin this past summer and were quite impressed with its design both inside and out. Lightyear began production of 946 planned units this past December at Valmet Automotive in Finland, forever solidifying its place in history as the first to bring a solar EV to market.
Although much of the public’s eye has been on the Lightyear 0 for the past four years, the company has been working behind the scenes to deliver its second model, the Lightyear 2. While its predecessor is a marvel to both the eyes and the spec sheet, it starts at an MSRP of $250,000 and has remained out of reach for most average and perhaps more affluent consumers.
Lightyear has been quite cognizant of this high price point and has urged fans of the company to “hold on.” As an encore to the Lightyear 0, the startup has been promising to deliver the Lightyear 2 in 2025, targeted around $30,000. Flush with new funding this past September, Lightyear relayed that it remained on track to deliver a consumer-friendly solar EV. Now that Lightyear 0 production is underway, it has turned its focus in bringing such a dream vehicle to reality.
I know what you’re thinking. Shaving over $200,000 off a vehicle design feels impossible, and in my multiple interactions with Lightyear co-founder and CEO Lex Hoefsloot this past year, I continued to pepper him with questions about the Lightyear 2 and its extremely alluring affordability, curious how they’ll be able to pull it off. Here’s what he told me in Finland this past December:
I think people will be amazed actually, by what is possible in high volume, because of course, the question we get the most, for good reason is “how the hell guys, do you get it from 250K (euros) to 30K?” What people underestimate about Lightyear 0 is that we focused so much on picking the technologies that are fundamentally scalable. That’s also puzzling to people why we can do it, but we’re really confident we can get to that price point.
Following today’s news, the Lightyear 2 should arrive at a bit higher price than originally promised, but if and when it joins the Lightyear 0 on roads, it has the makings to be a slam dunk in value. Check out some of the first images shared this morning.
Join the waitlist for the $40k Lightyear 2 now
According to a press release from Lightyear early this morning, the official waitlist for the Lightyear 2 is now open on the company website. By joining the waitlist, customers in the US, UK, and EU can remain in the know for updates surrounding the Lightyear 2, including being the first to submit an official pre-order.
Hoefsloot again spoke to the company’s next big step in bringing solar EVs to the masses, soon in markets around the globe:
Lightyear 2 will fast track our mission of delivering clean mobility to everyone, everywhere. This is the first EV that allows consumers to prioritize sustainability, without compromising on practicality. By harnessing the power of the sun, Lightyear 2 elevates the electric driving experience and reduces reliance on strained electricity grids. In fact, while Lightyear 2 vehicles require less charging from the electricity grid than a conventional EV, they also flip the script by providing clean energy back into the grid.
While the company is not sharing many details of the Lightyear 2’s performance just yet, it is promising to deliver over 500 miles (800 km) of range on a single charge, combining its battery power with the free daily energy from the Sun. As you can see in the images above, it fits the same design profile as the Lightyear 0, but in a more compact shape. Still it offers seating for five and the ground clearance of an SUV.
Despite this lack of details available to the public, the company says it already has 21,000 pre-orders of Lightyear 2 from international leasing and ride sharing partners like LeasePlan, MyWheels, Arval and Athlon. According to a spokesperson for the company, the planned mass market volume of Lightyear 2 production should provide enough for both the commercial partners and consumers alike, so those 21k reservations shouldn’t affect customers who pre-order their own personal SEV.
Lightyear is promising an update on its production partner alongside an overall production update. It is also promising to share a full design reveal this coming summer. You can join the Lightyear 2 waitlist here.
Electrek’s Take
If this solar EV makes it to market, I’m in. While there are certainly less expensive EVs available on the market today, $40,000 is definitely a tough price point to get beneath and still sits as a relatively affordable number compared to other models.
This is especially true when you factor in the 500+ mile range and the capability to garner free miles from a ball of gas in the sky. Given that the Lightyear 2 is now being advertised around $40k instead of the originally promised price about $10k less, its clear that Lightyear has a better idea of its final design and supply chain and has faced reality. Even at a higher price, I think under $40k will be quite enticing to consumers, as long as it can stay around that number when production begins in 2025.
One of the things that impressed me most in talking to the team in Spain this past summer with the Lightyear 0 is the technology itself. Lightyear developed much of the tech including solar panels and motors in-house, and now that they’ve mastered it within the 0, they told me they are quite confident that they can scale it efficiently with the Lightyear 2. We as consumers should benefit.
It’s also exciting to see this model coming to the US, setting the stage for a head-to-head battle with California-based solar EV company Aptera. Both companies have been publicly supportive of one another for the good of solar EV adoption, and its exciting to day dream about the possibility of two, long-range range solar EVs becoming available to US consumers.
In visiting the Lightyear 0 assembly line at Valmet Automotive last month, it’s clear that Lightyear will need to significantly ramp up its footprint to support mass production. Whether that means more lines at Valmet or a second production partner is unclear, but the Lightyear is promising a production partner update in the near future.
Trust that I will keep you in the know, and as soon I can get in or near the Lightyear 2, you’ll be the first to see it. Until then.
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A new report states that Tesla will pause part of new Model Y production at Gigafactory Shanghai for 3 weeks to upgrade the lines.
The shutdown will extend beyond the regular Chinese New Year.
The Chinese New Year is technically 2 weeks long, but the official holiday lasts a week, during which significant parts of the country’s industries shut down.
That includes the auto industry and Tesla, but it looks like the American automaker plans to do things a bit differently this year after having just started production of its updated Model Y at Gigafactory Shanghai.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Tesla plans to shut down part of its new Model Y production lines from around January 22 to February 14.
In comparison, Tesla only plans to shut down production of the Model 3, the only other vehicle produced at the plant, from January 26 to February 3.
Tesla only recently started production of the updated version of its best-selling electric SUV. The report states that the automaker will take advantage of this extended Lunar New Year shutdown to upgrade parts of the production lines in order to streamline and ramp up production capacity.
The automaker delivered about 480,000 Model Ys in China in 2024 – up about 5% year-over-year.
Reports claimed that Tesla received over 50,000 orders for the updated vehicle version in the first 24 hours of the unveiling.
Electrek’s Take
It makes sense. Over the last few weeks, Tesla has basically been running a pilot of production of the upgraded version, which is entirely different from the previous version, but there are enough differences that new parts and processes can create bottlenecks.
Tesla likely found ways to optimize production during that time and now will implement it during this extended shutdown.
We will try to keep track of the Model Y production and rollout in China as any delay or production issues can be extremely impactful, considering the Model Y is the world’s best-selling EV and China is the biggest EV market.
Any kind of issue there can be extremely impactful on Tesla and the broader EV market.
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American Honda shared a business outlook for 2025 during a recent briefing with the media. In terms of electrification, the next 12 months for Honda will be much of the same: facelifting tried-and-true ICE models like the CR-V and Passport. However, there was one exciting piece of news from Honda on the BEV front—the automaker has confirmed it will begin US production of an Acura RSX EV.
Honda and its premium sub-brand Acura, for that matter, are getting more and more coverage on Electrek’s homepage thanks to the combined efforts in adding new BEV models… although that transition has still been relatively slow compared to other OEMs.
Nevertheless, Honda launched the all-electric Prologue, which has found quick success with US consumers. Shortly thereafter, Acura launched the ZDX, which sits atop the same Ultium platform as Prologue, provided through a partnership with GM.
Honda has since backed out of that partnership—at least the part where GM provides vehicle architecture—and has been developing its own in-house platform that will one day power its new 0 Series lineup of BEVs. These originally debuted at CES 2024 and remerged at this year’s event as prototypes—and now they’re white! They will also feature a new proprietary vehicle OS called ASIMO (more on that below).
While we await the arrival of those Honda BEVs, we can expect to see a new Acura model hit the market first, based on an SUV called the Performance EV Concept, which debuted at Monterey Car Week this past August. At the time, the Acura Design Studio described the concept as “the evolution of Acura’s performance-focused design direction and the brand’s next all-electric model.”
That new production model didn’t have a name yet, but we did learn it would be the first BEV to debut on Honda’s new bespoke platform and the first all-electric model to roll off its assembly lines at the new Honda EV Hub in Marysville, Ohio.
Today, we learned that the Performance EV Concept has evolved into a full-fledged passenger model with a familiar name – the Acura RSX EV.
Acura brings back the “RSX” nameplate as an EV SUV
During a media briefing earlier this week, American Honda shared its 2025 outlook, led by vice president of sales, Lance Woelfer. This year’s strategy includes the production of its first original BEV in Ohio using domestically and globally sourced parts as a new hybrid model and several ICE vehicles (boo).
Woelfer confirmed that the first bespoke all-electric model coming out of Ohio will be the Acura RSX EV. This move marks the return of a notable nameplate in the Acura lineup that evolved from the original Honda Integra. The Acura RSX was sold in North America from the early- to mid-2000s and still has a decent fanbase, especially amongst fans of the Honda Integra and Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) enthusiasts.
Acura revived the Integra nameplate in 2021 as a Honda Civic-based liftback, and although that model is sharp, it remains combustion, hence why Acura has revived the RSX name as an EV model. Per Mike Langel, assistant vice president, Acura National Sales.
The nameplate pays homage to the Acura RSX with its coupe-like silhouette, but it truly represents a forward-looking approach to fun-to-drive performance. Our second all-electric SUV will solidify our EV credentials even as its ICE stablemates, the all-new ADX, RDX, MDX, TLX and Integra continue to attract new buyers to the Acura brand.
The Acura RSX EV, seen in a unique camo wrap above, looks quite sleek, but I predict Integra and RSX purists may reject this new model out of the gate because it’s undeniably an SUV, not a sporty compact like the vehicle(s) it’s named after. This reminds me of when Ford introduced the Mustang Mach-E, and brand loyalists argued, “That’s not a Mustang.” Just like the Mach-E, the Acura RSX EV represents a new generation of performance models, no matter what you call it.
The new SUV also represents a massive step for Honda and its premium brand, as the Acura RSX EV will be the first model to utilize Honda’s new EV platform and its new ASIMO OS operating system introduced at CES 2025. At the time, Honda said ASIMO will constantly update its in-vehicle software via over-the-air (OTA) updates for both the digital UX and integrated dynamics controls that will allow the automaker to deliver “a personalized ownership experience that will enhance the joy of driving.”
Acura says the RSX EV is slotted to begin development testing in real-world conditions this week ahead of planned production in Ohio later this year. We plan to visit Honda’s EV Hub later this month, so perhaps we can capture some images of where this new SUV will be built or, better yet, look at the prototype up close.
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