Solar car? Yes, it’s coming and you can test it in Brussels

We all love hearing about sustainable mobility and new trends in the cities. One innovative solution that will arrive to Brussels this Friday (28th of September) is a new model of solar car! The tech-start-up from Munich, Sono Motors, has reached its crowdinvesting goal of 1 million Euro, in just a few days and is now on a tour around Europe.

Brussels is of course a must stop. Founders claim that “driving an innovative car with solar panels is a lot of fun” and they invite all those interested in Brussels to have a test drive for free this Friday. Test drive in Brussels will take place at the following location: Baron Brugmann de Walzinplein 18, 1933 Zaventem. For more info get in touch with organizers via press@sonomotors.com

On July 27th this year, Sono Motors had presented the Sion at the Munich Technology Center. The innovative electric car integrates solar cells (“viSono”) into the body, has a range of 250 km and retails at 16,000 Euro (excluding battery). In addition, the vehicle can be used as mobile power storage and has integrated sharing services. With the Sion, the first real mainstream solar car will go into volume-production.

Sono Motors successful thanks to crowdfunding

The first prototypes were developed in close cooperation with supporters from all over the world. In 2016, Sono Motors had acquired more than 850,000 Euro, through a crowdfunding campaign. The founders wanted to follow up on this success. According to CEO, Laurin Hahn, “Without our community, Sono Motors would have never been so successful. The fact that we could reach our goal, in such a short amount of time, shows us, once again, that we are on the right track. The Sion simply meets the Zeitgeist.” In addition, the company could secure the backing of well-known investors, such as Matthias Willenbacher, Franz Böllinger and Marita Hansen.

The company recently launched a crowd-investing campaign. On the independent Seedrs platform, registered participants could, for the first time, acquire shares of Sono Motors. In total, 1.65 percent of the company’s shares will be issued in exchange for capital of over 1,000,000 Euro. Martin Sabbione, CFO of Sono Motors, suggests that “the success of this campaign justifies an expansion of the scope of the initiative on Seedrs”.

“We are very pleased to see our campaign has performed so well. We have collected investments from over 500 investors, from 14 countries within an extremely short period of time,” said CFO Martin Sabbione, and continued “the possibility of crowd-financing has great potential for companies like Sono Motors” and adds further “We are innovative in all aspects of business; including the funding of our company.” The acquired funds of the campaign will flow into the vehicle development of the Sion, and first steps of industrialization.

The community-based approach, in all aspects of the business, is one of the core ideals of Sono Motors. With the successful crowdinvesting campaign, Sono Motors is taking the next leap towards the serial production of the Sion. “The aim of the crowdinvesting campaign is to finance the next steps of vehicle development and first steps of industrialisation. Our target is to acquire 5,000 reservations, to strengthen Sono Motors’ position vis-à-vis system suppliers” said CFO, Martin Sabbione.

In addition to the crowdinvesting campaign, the young company recently launched a test drive tour through Europe. Those interested, can test two Sion prototypes in many cities across Western Europe, e.g. Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Brussels, Amsterdam, or Paris. The aim of this tour is to collect 5,000 reservations to start volume production in time. Following company information 2,000 reservations have already been acquired.

All registration information is available on the company’s website. If you would like to register for a press test drive, please do not hesitate to contact at press@sonomotors.com