Now’s your chance to buy a Lightyear 0 prototype as the start-up auctions off all its assets
As part of a recently announced restructuring plan in which defunct start-up Atlas Technologies (Lightyear) rose from the ashes of bankruptcy, it is auctioning off hundreds of assets to pay back its creditors and transition into a new business entity. Today, you can buy one of several Lightyear 0 prototypes as well as a bunch of other components used to assemble the solar EVs.
This past January, the original iteration of Lightyear declared bankruptcy, relinquishing its business to a Dutch legal and tax firm. This news was disheartening, to say the least, as fellow SEV start-up Sono Motors had recently abandoned its vehicle development; plus, we had just seen the first Lightyear 0 vehicles rolling off their assembly line a month or so prior.
The sorrow of losing an innovative start-up like Lightyear won’t last too long, however, as the remaining executives reemerged in February, vowing to restructure into a new company and continue its work in delivering the mass-market Lightyear 2 solar EV.
Atlas Technologies is now officially kaput to make way for the new slimmed-down business that has retained the original start-up’s IP and separate solar panel division. The solar EV start-up’s second try is called Lightyear Technologies – but it does not arrive without its fair share of carnage.
Through the restructuring, the original 600-person Lightyear team has been slashed to about 100, and although several major investors rallied behind Lightyear to resuscitate it, there’s still a lot of damage to creditors that needs to be resolved.
In early April, we shared that Atlas Technologies intended to auction off much of the assets from its past life in order to pay back its creditors. That day has now come, and there is an entire library of Lightyear components available for the public to buy, including 0 SEV prototypes.
Lightyear allows you to buy its past so it can move forward
Consumers may not have had €250,000 to buy a Lightyear 0 when its short-lived production began, but how about €24,000 for a working prototype? Or €7,600 for a validation prototype?
These bids are sure to go up, but this is a rare chance to buy one of the few (and early) working solar EVs in the world. Even as prototypes, they’re pretty sleek. Troostwijk Auctions is facilitating the sale of Lightyear’s assets online, which includes the opportunity to buy tons of various components in addition to the prototype vehicles.
Other items for sale include vehicle bodies, battery packs, electric motors, and even solar roofs. If I were an EV start-up, I’d be foaming at the mouth at this haul. Are you seeing this Aptera? The bid for five electric motors is at 480 euros right now.
As we’ve reported in the past, the newly formed Lightyear Technologies hopes the public will buy, buy, buy so it can repay its creditors from the bankruptcy filing and move forward from the whole ordeal.
The next step will be to nimbly utilize the fresh funds it has raised and rehone its focus on the development of the Lightyear 2. Even so, Lightyear 2.0 has already stated it will need additional funding in order to deliver a solar EV that consumers can actually buy… and not through a fire sale.
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![Day 1 of the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025 [Gallery]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/07/54629423281_6315c46dff_k.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Today was the official start of racing at the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025! There was a tremendous energy (and heat) on the ground at NCM Motorsports Park as nearly a dozen teams took to the track. Currently, as of writing, Stanford is ranked #1 in the SOV (Single-Occupant Vehicle) class with 68 registered laps. However, the fastest lap so far belongs to UC Berkeley, which clocked a 4:45 on the 3.15-mile track. That’s an average speed of just under 40 mph on nothing but solar energy. Not bad!
In the MOV (Multi-Occupant Vehicle) class, Polytechnique Montréal is narrowly ahead of Appalachian State by just 4 laps. At last year’s formula sun race, Polytechnique Montréal took first place overall in this class, and the team hopes to repeat that success. It’s still too early for prediction though, and anything can happen between now and the final day of racing on Saturday.
Congrats to the teams that made it on track today. We look forward to seeing even more out there tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some shots from today via the event’s wonderful photographer Cora Kennedy.
Stay tuned for more!
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The numbers are in and they are all bad for Tesla fans – the company sold just 5,000 Cybertruck models in Q4 of 2025, and built some 30% more “other” vehicles than it delivered. It just gets worse and worse, on today’s tension-building episode of Quick Charge!
We’ve also got day 1 coverage of the 2025 Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix, reports that the Tesla Optimus program is in chaos after its chief engineer jumps ship, and a look ahead at the fresh new Hyundai IONIQ 2 set to bow early next year, thanks to some battery specs from the Kia EV2.
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Tesla has launched its new Oasis Supercharger, the long-promised EV charging station of the future, with a solar farm and off-grid batteries.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to the Supercharger stations, and CEO Elon Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
All of these pieces have been in place for years, and Tesla has now discontinued the Powerpack in favor of the Megapack. The Supercharger network is also transitioning to V4 stations.
Yet, solar and battery deployment haven’t accelerated much in the decade since Musk made that comment, but it is finally happening.
Last year, Tesla announced a new project called ‘Oasis’, which consists of a new model Supercharger station with a solar farm and battery storage enabling off-grid operations in Lost Hills, California.
Tesla has now unveiled the project and turned on most of the Supercharger stalls:
The project consists of 168 chargers, with half of them currently operational, making it one of the largest Supercharger stations in the world. However, that’s not even the most notable aspect of it.
The station is equipped with 11 MW of ground-mounted solar panels and canopies, spanning 30 acres of land, and 10 Tesla Megapacks with a total energy storage capacity of 39 MWh.
It can be operated off-grid, which is the case right now, according to Tesla.
With off-grid operations, Tesla was about to bring 84 stalls online just in time for the Fourth of July travel weekend. The rest of the stalls and a lounge are going to open later this year.
Electrek’s Take
This is awesome. A bit late, but awesome. This is what charging stations should be like: fully powered by renewable energy.
Unfortunately, it will be much harder to open those stations in the future due to legislation that Trump and the Republican Party have just passed, which removes incentives for solar and energy storage, adds taxes on them, and removes incentives to build batteries – all things that have helped Tesla considerably over the last few years.
The US is likely going to have a few tough years for EV adoption and renewable energy deployment.
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