Sono Motors plots solar-electric course

MUNICH -- Many in the auto industry remember the introduction of BMW’s production i3 as a watershed moment for electric vehicles. Jona Christians remembers feeling underwhelmed.

“It was just not radical enough,” he said.

As a result of that middling impression, Christians cofounded a company and embarked on a plan that’s squarely in radical territory. Sono Motors intends to build perhaps the world’s first solar-electric vehicle, one underpinned by a conventionally charged battery and augmented with solar power. The car, called a Sion, comes with functionality banked in that allows motorists to both share power and vehicles themselves.

Ambition has never been in short supply, and automotive history is replete with examples of startups that never amounted to more than a curiosity. Yet years into its quest to build its Sion vehicle, Sono Motors is not only still around, it’s outlining granular plans for the near future.

Headquartered in Munich, the company has roughly 100 employees and has raised approximately $12.8 million, according to Crunchbase’s records. Christians and other executives offered a glance at the company’s position and its march toward production, which is scheduled to start late in 2020 and ramp to full-scale production in 2021.

The automotive transformation envisioned by Sono Motors extends to the production process itself. Working with contract manufacturer NEVS and utilizing an old Saab factory in Sweden, Sono Motors says it will simplify production by offering a single-model Sion without variants. Further, they’ve eliminated the need for steel stamping tools by using polymer tools that Sono Motors says are “1/100th the cost.” And there’s no paint shop, eliminating a step that usually consumes 80 percent of the energy devoted to producing a traditional vehicle, according to Sono Motors COO Thomas Hausch.

The vehicle itself is what consumers may find most innovative.

With a lithium ion battery supplied by Continental that has a 35- kilowatt-hour capacity, the Sion has a range of 255 kilometers, or roughly 158 miles. That’s augmented by the solar capabilities. Panels are embedded in the roof and sides of the Sion. Exactly how much range they add depends on the fickle nature of sun, season and clouds. On average, the company says motorists can expect 5,800 solar kilometers — roughly 3,600 miles — per year, or just shy of 10 miles per day.

“Range and charging infrastructure are all hurdles for electric vehicles,” Christians said. “You never know where you are going to park and need to charge. We had to develop that solar integration for range anxiety.”

The Sion is made to draw, store or share energy. Potential recipients of that power include other vehicles, homes and electric grids. The car is compatible with standard chargers, fast-chargers and European household outlets, and it can import or export energy via alternating or direct current.

Power sharing is controlled by a Sono app being developed in-house. The same app helps motorists share their vehicles via peer-to-peer networks. Functionality for car-sharing is integrated into the vehicle’s telematics units, which are supplied by Bosch.

The vehicles are tailor-made with an eye toward a demographic that’s allegedly on the brink of a generational shift away from traditional ownership and toward shared mobility services.

“Defining yourself by owning a car, that’s a goner,” Hausch said. Pointing to a founding team whose members are significantly younger,he said, “These guys don’t own a car. Guys our age don’t understand the market like we did 20, 30 years ago. These guys, they have 30 transportation apps on their phone.”

Hausch and CFO Ulrich Hörnke balance the ambition of the young co-founders of Sono Motors with decades of automotive-industry experience, along with jobs at previous EV startups. Both are DaimlerChrysler veterans. Hausch was vice president and managing director of Nissan Center Europe, while also working at Coda, a now-shuttered California EV startup. Hörnke was vice president of finance for DaimlerChrysler China, at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and at EV maker Faraday Future.

More than 10,000 customers have plunked down an average of $1,200 to reserve a Sion. Eighty percent of those are from Germany. Though 50 of those reservations are held in the United States, there are no widespread plans to sell the vehicles for American consumption.

“You’d think it’s all granola,” Hausch said. “But it’s not. It’s young, old, it’s people with families. When we look at our reservations, it’s not one small sliver of the market that’s interested. We’re finding it has wide appeal.”