Sono Motors says it has raised $55.42 million for solar powered car

FRANKFURT — German solar-powered electric car startup Sono Motors said it had raised 50 million euros from a crowd-funding campaign to develop a solar-powered vehicle.

Munich-based Sono, founded in 2016, has attracted engineers from Nissan, Opel and Honda to develop the Sion, an electric car clad in crystalline silicon cells, which give the vehicle up to 30 km (18.6 miles) of electric charge a day.

In a tweet published on Saturday, the company said, “Instead of giving up who we are, we decided to fight for what we believe in. By launching one of the biggest community funding campaigns in Europe. For a world in which every car on the street is electric and shared.”

https://t.co/2SQldsr8UM pic.twitter.com/AiNeuOVvXs

— Sono Motors (@SonoMotors) January 18, 2020

The Sion also features moss integrated into the dashboard for air filtration and humidity regulation. Sono says the moss needs no water or other special care to maintain.

“We have a seat heater, there is air conditioning, there is a large infotainment system where I can also connect my phone interactively, which means I really have a full vehicle which is very simple, has no frills,” Laurin Hahn, co-founder and chief executive of the startup told Reuters in 2018.

This isn’t Sono’s first crowdfunding campaign. The startup raised over $200,000 in a 2016 campaign.

Reporting by Edward Taylor.

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