Author: EVAI

• Lightyear secured approximately $11 million (10M Euros) of funding
• The funding will help the restructured business sell solar hardware
• Lightyear’s moved on from attempting to build its own EVs

Lightyear has secured 10 million euros (approximately $11 million at current exchange rates) to fund a new business of selling solar hardware for other companies’ vehicles, such as solar panels for vehicle rooftops.

“We will use this opportunity to grow our team of experts and technicians to become the leading supplier of on-board solar systems for vehicles,” Bonna Newman, who was appointed CEO of Lightyear earlier this year, said in a statement.

The Netherlands-based company previously focused on designing EVs that relied heavily on integrated solar panels, allowing for longer intervals between charging sessions. The company’s Lightyear 0 had a conventional battery pack and onboard charger, but the solar panels meant owners might not need to charge for months, Lightyear claimed.

Lightyear 0 production at Valmet Automotive in Finland

This technology—and Lightyear itself—originated with the World Solar Challenge and Solar Team Eindhoven. That team’s cars, including the Stella Vie that predicted the form of the Lightyear 0, won championship titles.

The Lightyear 0 entered production in late 2022, with Lightyear claiming at the time to be the first to bring a solar car to market. The company also claimed the 0 had the most efficient powertrain and the most aerodynamic body of any car in production at the time.

However, the Lightyear 0 was an expensive, niche model. The car was to be built by contract manufacturer Valmet in Finland, initially at a rate of just one car per week. Valmet had been due to produce a 150-unit total, although only a few initial vehicles were built. The price was set at roughly $170,000.

Waitlist announced for Lightyear 2 solar car due in 2025.

Lightyear nixed the 0 in order to pivot to the $40,000 Lightyear 2. The company announced plans for this follow-up model in 2021, and opened a waitlist in January 2023 in anticipation of starting production at the end of 2025. But the company was experiencing financial trouble as it made that announcement and never confirmed where the 2 would be manufactured.

A pivot from selling cars to selling solar hardware for use on other companies’ cars matches the path of another solar-EV startup. Sono Motors had also contracted with Valmet to manufacture its solar-assisted Sion hatchback, but terminated the project before production even started to focus on solar kits for commercial vehicles.

• Top Gear’s head of car testing drives the McMurtry Speirling around a track and is left gobsmacked.
• They compare the Speirling to a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, one of the most track-focused road cars, which looks slow in comparison.

Many electric vehicles are designed with a track focus these days, but the McMurtry Speirling makes them look basic. The latest version, the Speirling Pure prototype, has been smashing lap records around the world with its unmatched combination of power, lightness and downforce.

It has 1,000 horsepower from two motors driving the rear wheels and can hit 60 mph from a standstill in under 1.5 seconds. However, its most interesting (and performance-enhancing) feature is its fan that effectively sticks the car to the tarmac (even when it’s standing still), providing up to 4,400 pounds of downforce.

This allows the Speirling to corner at absurd speeds, subjecting drivers to over 3G of lateral force. For context, the very best track-focused road cars like a Porsche 911 GT3 RS struggle to reach 1.3G through corners, while a Formula 1 car will go up to 6G through a very high-speed corner where its aero is working at peak capacity.

Driving a Speirling is a one-of-a-kind experience since there isn’t another car that creates downforce the way it does. It’s also really quick in a straight line, and unlike a car with conventional aero, whose rate of acceleration slows as speed builds due to drag, in the Speirling it feels just as relentless all the way to its top speed.

Top Gear put its head of car testing, Ollie Marriage, behind the wheel of the Speirling Pure, and he was left gobsmacked. He tried the three different fan settings, which change not only the amount of downforce but also the power provided by the motors to mimic different racing series. The lowest fan setting simulates a GT3 car, after which you can move up to LMP1 and then to F1 levels of acceleration and grip.

The way you can corner in a Speirling is remarkable, and even though it feels surefooted and undramatic, the forces at work on your body do take their toll. Marriage does note in his track test of the Speirling Pure that after a few laps, he is beginning to feel the strain of all those lateral and longitudinal forces.

McMurtry won’t build either the first Speirling prototype or the newer Speirling Pure in this exact form. The production Speirling will have a longer wheelbase and a larger 100-kilowatt-hour battery pack, and it will be slightly heavier than the prototypes, weighing in at about 2,650 pounds. Even with the extra weight, it will still be able to smash through the quarter-mile in about 8 seconds and reach a top speed of 185 mph.

With a price tag of £895,000, or over $1.1 million, the McMurtry Speirling is very expensive for a single-seater track toy. The manufacturer says only 100 will be built, and the first are expected to arrive in 2025. McMurtry has also revealed that it’s analyzing the possibility of making a road-legal version.

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• A study found Tesla drivers are distracted while using Autopilot
• Tesla’s Autopilot is a hands-on driver-assist system, not a hands-off system
• The study notes more robust safeguards are needed to prevent misuse

Driver-assist systems like Tesla Autopilot are meant to reduce the frequency of crashes, but drivers are more likely to become distracted as they get used to them, according to a new study published Tuesday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

Autopilot, along with Volvo’s Pilot Assist system, were used in two separate studies by the IIHS and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab. Both studies showed that drivers had a tendency to engage in distracting behaviors while still meeting the bare-minimum attention requirements of these systems, which the IIHS refers to as “partial automation” systems.

In one study, researchers analyzed how the driving behavior of 29 volunteers supplied with a Pilot Assist-equipped 2017 Volvo S90 changed over four weeks. Researchers focused on how likely volunteers were to engage in non-driving behaviors when using Pilot Assist on highways relative to unassisted highway driving.

Pilot Assist, in 2017 Volvo S90

Drivers were much more likely to “check their phones, eat a sandwich, or do other visual-manual activities” than when driving unassisted, the study found. That tendency generally increased over time as drivers got used to the systems, although both studies found that some drivers engaged in distracted driving from the outset.

The second study looked at the driving behavior of 14 volunteers driving a 2020 Tesla Model 3 equipped with Autopilot over the course of a month. For this study, researchers picked people who had never used Autopilot or an equivalent system, and focused on how often drivers triggered the system’s attention warnings.

Researchers found that the Autopilot newbies “quickly mastered the timing interval of its attention reminder feature so that they could prevent warnings from escalating into more serious interventions” such as emergency slowdowns or lockouts from the system.

2024 Tesla Model 3

“In both these studies, drivers adapted their behavior to engage in distracting activities,” IIHS President David Harvey said in a statement. “This demonstrates why partial automation systems need more robust safeguards to prevent misuse.”

The IIHS declared earlier this year, from a different data set, that assisted driving systems don’t increase safety, and it’s advocated for more in-car safety monitoring to prevent a net-negative affect on safety. In March 2024, it completed testing of 14 driver-assist systems across nine brands and found that most were too easy to misuse. Autopilot in particular was found to confuse drivers into thinking it was more capable than it really was.

Autopilot’s shortcomings have also drawn attention from U.S. safety regulators. In a 2023 recall Tesla restricted the behavior of its Full Self-Driving Beta system, which regulators called “an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety.” Tesla continues to use the misleading label Full Self-Driving despite the system offering no such capability.

Shift brings two timely conversations this week. First, Austin Russell explores what it takes to industrialize lidar at a time of turbulence in the industry. Then, Jeff Allen, previews the Forth electric transportation conference as it moves to Detroit.

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• A study found the average EV battery degrades 1.8% per year
• That means EV batteries could last over 20 years, or longer than the EV itself
• Further reduction in degradation could help assure more second uses
  

Battery degradation can be a concern for potential electric vehicle owners, but new data indicates most batteries will outlast the EVs they’re installed in.

The data comes from the “Taking Charge” report released earlier this year by Geotab, a company that sells telematics systems and services, primarily to fleet companies. Geotab said it based its findings on data from 10,000 EVs operating in North America and Europe.

Analysis of that data showed average battery degradation of 1.8% per year, according to Geotab, which noted that batteries could last 20 years or more at that rate. Some vehicles performed even better, with estimated battery degradation of less than 1% per year.

Observed EV battery degradation (from 2024 Geotab

Both numbers are improvements from just a few years ago. In 2019, Geotab saw average annual battery degradation rate of 2.3% from its sample, although that decreased to 1.6% under ideal climate conditions and charging patterns.

The report underscores that higher EV use doesn’t mean higher degradation, but more fast-charging might. Geotab noted a correlation between greater DC fast-charging use and faster-than-average battery degradation—especially for vehicles in hotter climates. Owners are often cautioned about frequent fast charging for this reason, although 2023 analysis by battery-data firm Recurrent showed Teslas performed better in this regard.

Similarly, previous analysis from Recurrent showed that EV batteries degrade faster in hot weather, but owners can take steps to prevent that, such as parking in a garage or in the shade, as well as leaving the battery half charged in hot weather. Any degradation from hot weather is also unlikely to leave people stuck in EVs.

Chevrolet EVs at a Tesla Supercharger station

It’s also possible that battery degradation could be reduced even further with different practices. One study found that initial high-power charging at the factory could significantly extend EV battery life.

The slow rate of battery degradation observed in EVs already on the road should give fleet managers more confidence in electrification, Geotab says. In its report, the company estimates that 75% of light commercial vehicles could be replaced by comparable EVs today, and an EV could provide cost savings of $15,900 per vehicle over its life.

That also potentially leaves more room for second-life uses such as energy storage for solar, wind, grid-balancing and other clean-energy solutions.

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