Developing a new car is no easy task. Just ask any established automaker. Add in the challenge of creating a long-range electric vehicle (EV) that is solar powered, from a new car company, and the job is even harder.
However, that’s what the team at Lightyear is attempting to do, a challenging task made possible only through revolutionary technology and a novel approach, believe company execs.
To watch the team’s on-going development, the company recently launched the Tech Progress platform on its website. With the regular posts, the company’s product developers plan to keep fans and customers up to date on the latest developments as they work to mature their technology and integrate it in the upcoming validation prototype of their first car called Lightyear One.
Lightyear is “on a mission to make clean mobility available to everyone, everywhere.” The company was founded in 2016 by alumni of Solar Team Eindhoven, which won the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in 2013, 2015, and 2017. So, the team started its engineering from a radically different perspective.
Lightyear started from scratch to purposefully design a car that “gets the most out of every ray of sunshine,” said Lex Hoefsloot, CEO and Cofounder of Lightyear. “The main goal of the car is to fill in where electric cars fall short. Research has shown that range and the lack of charging options are still the top concerns that people have when considering electric cars.”
The company currently employs more than 120 employees with a mix of experience including from automotive industry companies like Tesla, Audi, and Ferrari. Among the leaders helping Hoefsloot steer Lightyear are Arjo van der Ham, Chief Technology Officer and Cofounder; Laurens Weers, Chief Financial Officer; Willem van den Corput, VP Engineering; Hans Heijmans, Chief Operating Officer; Maijke Receveur, Chief People & Processes Officer; Martijn Lammers, Chief Strategy Officer and Cofounder; and Koen van Ham, Chief Design and Cofounder.
Funding development
The Lightyear One prototype was presented in June 2019 to a select audience of investors, customers, partners, and press in the TheaterHangaar in Katwijk, the Netherlands.
“Two years of dreaming, thinking, and working hard have led to this milestone, which is a giant leap towards achieving our mission of making clean mobility available to everyone,” Hoefsloot said at the time.
In less than three years, the company has raised funding of more than €30 million through reservations, investments, and grants.
In September 2019, Lightyear said it was working with Deloitte Netherlands on a sustainable mobility partnership that involved leasing Lightyear Ones through lease partner LeasePlan Netherlands through the reservation of one million sustainable kilometers.
“The importance of sustainability and new forms of mobility is indisputable,” Martijn van Rensch, Partner, Deloitte Consulting. “We believe in the mission of Lightyear, and we are happy to contribute to it by actively seeking out and developing new forms of mobility, such as car-sharing and by collaborating to solve future challenges.”
“Our mission is to drive a lightyear’s worth of solar kilometers on sustainable energy by 2035,” added Hoefsloot.
The Lightyear One vehicles are expected to be delivered to Deloitte mid-2021.
At the end of June 2020, and well into the COVID-19 pandemic, Sioux Technologies and BOM Brabant Ventures were two of the more recent investors in Lightyear, acknowledging the company’s added economic value for Brabant, The Netherlands, and the regional network of partners, suppliers, and educational institutions.
“Challengers of the incumbent automotive industry, such as Lightyear, are much less affected by the corona-crisis than traditional car makers,” Jeroen Willems, Investment Manager at BOM Brabant, said at the time. “We expect the transition to sustainable mobility to accelerate even further as a result of the crisis.”
This investment will fuel the economy, generate jobs and the development of new knowledge,” Willems added. “Furthermore, this investment supports large societal challenges such as energy transition and smart mobility. We hope that our investment will encourage new financiers to follow our example.”
“Sioux was one of the early investors of Lightyear,” said Arnoud de Geus, Director New Business Development at Sioux. “Being a development partner as well, we have been able to see the company mature on different levels from up close. This has given us the confidence to make a follow-up investment.”
Aerodynamic and solar technologies
The team is tackling the big challenges with what it calls “ultra-efficiency.”
One key decision in this regard was to spec four independently and directly driven in-wheel motors with little energy lost in powering the car. Those motors are part of a 97% efficient drivetrain that achieved a weighted WLTP efficiency of 91% and a total peak vehicle torque of 1920 N·m (1416 lb·ft). The car is constructed from high-tech materials to have the lowest weight possible while maintaining stringent passenger safety.
The result is expected to be an exceptional 83 W·h/km on the WLTP cycle on a relatively small battery. All charging options are easier because a lot more range results for the same amount of energy.
“You can charge up to 400 km per night from ordinary 230-V sockets,” said Hoefsloot. “That’s great for road trips because you don’t need charging infrastructure.”
The car’s shape is one of the key contributors to efficiency.
During wind-tunnel testing in Turin last year, the team was able to validate their simulation models and confirm a drag coefficient (Cd) below 0.20. The exact number will be made public when the car is fully developed, but the company expects One will likely be the most aerodynamic car when available in the market. That’s all the more impressive in a vehicle that combines “the passenger capacity of a five-seater and the trunk capacity of an SUV.” Storage space is 780 L (27.5 ft³).
The wind-tunnel testing was made possible through funding received from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.
The roof and hood are comprised of 5 m² (54 ft²) of integrated solar cells in safety glass, achieving 215 Wp/m² for charging up to 70 km (44 mi) of range per day. This allows users, depending on the climate, to drive up to 20,000 km (12,400 mi) per year on the power of the sun.
The solar roof not only is key to the vehicle’s efficiency, but its development with a key partner could result in benefits beyond Lightyear’s application.
In May, Lightyear and Royal DSM signed an agreement to jointly scale commercialization of the solar-roof technology. The partnership aims to integrate solar-powered roofs in a variety of electric vehicles, including cars, vans, and buses—enabling users to charge their vehicle directly with clean energy. The companies are teaming up to assess the market, starting with pilot projects for other customers from the automotive and public transport sector.
The global EV market has enormous growth potential. It was valued at more than $160 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach more than $800 billion by 2027, according to Lightyear based on market assessments from Bloomberg, IDTechEx, and Time. To accelerate this growth, the company says that the EV industry now needs to overcome the twin hurdles of limited range and grid-dependency.
The Lightyear/DSM alliance addresses this need by enabling various EVs to increase their range through energy harvested directly from the sun. The integration of a solar roof is expected to be a good investment in multiple EV market segments.
DSM’s conductive backsheet is an integral element of the roof, enabling all solar-cell connections to be put on the back of the solar panel so that more of the module’s surface is available for capturing sunlight. The reduction in electrical, cell-to-module losses not only delivers a 3% increase in power output; but it also has the added advantage of contributing to a more stylish roof.
“By stepping up our collaboration with Lightyear we are creating an entirely new market for ‘lossless’ high power back-contact technology—with the potential to change the face of clean mobility and make a big impact on climate change,” said Pascal de Sain, Vice President DSM Advanced Solar.
“By scaling up the accessibility of our solar technology through our partnership with DSM, we can accelerate the mass adoption of electric vehicles by making them sun-powered,” said Lammers, Lightyear’s Chief of Strategy and Cofounder.
Ultimately, the partnership will enable a new generation of smart solar-efficient solutions from two sustainability leaders that share a common goal: ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable modern energy for all—United Nations Sustainable Development Goal no 7.
Research and development continues
In 2020, Lightyear’s focus has been directed at the development of the core technologies to make Lightyear One an ultra-efficient solar car and ensure the company’s competitive edge.
“Such a leap in efficiency is only possible by going back to a blank piece of paper and working on some core technology,” said Arjo van der Ham, CTO Lightyear, earlier in 2020. “We are creating a revolutionary product and will validate our concept in 2020 by showcasing our mature core technologies at work in a Lightyear One platform demonstrator.”
Two Lightyear research vehicles have hit the road in June to test the solar technology in preparation for the exclusive series production expected by the end of 2021. The company fitted its solar technology onto a Volkswagen Crafter LCV and a Tesla Model 3, which have been driving around near Lightyear’s headquarters in Helmond, The Netherlands. Research vehicles 005 and 006, respectively, are the latest developments in a series of platforms serving to validate Lightyear’s technology and design choices.
The research vehicles will help to demonstrate the added value of integrated solar cells on vehicles. They will provide real-world data on solar yield, vibration impact, shock absorption, and waterproofness.
Initially developed to compete in the World Solar Challenge, the solar technology is being developed for production to maximize solar cell coverage, durability and safety, all seamlessly and aesthetically integrated. Company engineers have already teamed with their counterparts at SunPower, integrating Maxeon solar cells onto DSM’s conductive back-sheet technology, to increase solar yield, even in partial shade.
On top of being another significant milestone for the company, Research Vehicle 007 is being built on the native solar electric vehicle platform optimized for energy efficiency. Plans call for this vehicle to demonstrate the full potential of Lightyear’s signature solar technology, battery management system, in-wheel motors, inverters, and the improvements it presents over “regular” EV platforms.
Production and big future plans
Lightyear will be ramping up production of the Lightyear One in 2021. The first 100 cars have already been reserved. Via the Lightyear website, up to 946 “Pioneer” buyers can reserve a Lightyear One. The site currently lists a €150,000 price, expected delivery in late 2021, for the EU, Norway, and Switzerland.
“Since new technology has a high unit cost, we have to start in an exclusive market,” said Hoefsloot. “Lightyear One is the first long-range solar car and has staggering specifications.”
This is just the beginning, he added. Subsequent models will have significantly lower price points.
The company wants its platform and the exclusive series to serve as the foundation needed for a 2023 scale-up. In January, it confirmed its strategy focused on technology development and key partnerships to substantially scale-up production, aiming towards a more affordable model of its solar powered car.
The company is committed to its mission to make clean mobility accessible for everyone, everywhere. So it will move up the launch of a more affordable model by focusing on core technology development and outsourcing production—all through the establishment of key partnerships.
By scaling up its core technology, Lightyear expects to be ready to start high-volume production, of more than 100,000 cars per year, in that 2023 timeframe. The projected sales price could be as low as €50,000 on the future more-affordable models.
“We are convinced that this is the path to accelerate our scale, live up to our full impact, and take our responsibility: clean mobility for everyone, everywhere,” said Hoefsloot.
“In addition, future models will be provided to autonomous and shared car fleets, so the purchase price can be divided amongst a large group of users,” he continued. “Combined with the low operating costs of the vehicle, we aim to provide premium mobility for a low price per kilometer.”
He believes the third, final step will be “to provide truly sustainable cars that are more affordable to use than the cost of gas you need to drive a combustion car. This will prove to be our most important tipping point in the near future, and it will pave the way for a car fleet that is one hundred percent sustainable.”
