Sono Motors’ solar-powered hatchback has been reborn

The rather bland, boxy-looking thing above is the Sono Motors Sion. That name ringing a bell in the very depths of your ‘pointless knowledge’ lobe? It ought to be, because we covered news of the prototype back in August 2018. How could you forget?

At the time we were told that deliveries would begin in 2019, but investment issues quickly put a halt on proceedings. Now though, after one of the largest community funding campaigns in Europe, the Sion is back in business. Quite incredibly, Sono managed to crowdfund around €53million in just 50 days. Crikey.

Around 13,000 reservations have apparently been made and production is set to begin later this year in the old Saab factory at Trollhättan, Sweden. We’ve got plenty more details to share too, so here goes…

The Sion EV now features a 35kWh battery, which powers a 161bhp electric motor and takes 30 minutes to reach 80 per cent charge from a fast charger. Range is just under 160 miles, top speed is 87mph and there’s even a tow bar that can lug 750kg worth of trailer.

Oh, and did we mention that as well as being plugged-in to charge, the Sion can run on the power of the sun? Yep, you’ll no doubt have noticed the lashings of solar panels, and Sono says that if you left it outside in Germany for a single day it’d recoup enough charge for just over 20 miles of driving. Impressive.

The cost? €25,500 – although the price to pay for driving something that looks this tepid is slightly harder to measure. At least the interior is interesting, though – there’s moss in there for starters. Sono says it regulates humidity in the cabin and filters out particulates in the air. We say it may lead to unwanted attention.

So, are you starting to understand the crowdfunding campaign’s popularity? Or still struggling to get over that non-existent styling? Thoughts in the comments below please.