Lightyear’s electric cars run on sunshine, with an energy-efficient design powered by built-in solar cells. Its CEO and Co-Founder Lex Hoefsloot tells us more about the company its amazing cars that have everything to become our vehicles of the future.
Could you tell us about Lightyear? What led to its creation?
Lightyear was founded in November 2016 and currently employs well over 500 people. We develop electric cars with an energy-efficient design and integrated solar cells. The team includes young talent and experience, with former Tesla, Audi, McLaren, Ferrari and Google employees. TIME Magazine acknowledged the Lightyear 0 as one of the ‘100 best inventions’ of 2019.
The history of Lightyear lies in the World Solar Challenge. In 2013, a team that included four of the five founding members from the Solar Team Eindhoven competed and became world champions in the Cruiser class by building a 5-seater solar car that was able to drive between 1000– 1500 km on a single battery charge. Around that time, the first conventional electric vehicles (EVs) came into the streets, having a range of 100–250 km.
During the race, the then-students noticed that the vehicles that ran on gasoline had to make regular stops for refueling, whereas the solar car could just continue driving. The experience and technological achievement from this race made the founders of Lightyear realize that there is great potential for solar cars in the commercial market, breaking some of the barriers to EV adoption (range, charging, and, in the end, costs
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