Solar EV manufacturer Lightyear has announced Swedish high-performance sports car manufacturer Koenigsegg as its latest investor. Furthermore, the latter will join Lightyear in a “technology-sharing partnership” in which both automakers will share proprietary and patented information to develop ultra-efficient vehicles like the upcoming Lightyear 2.
Lightyear is a Dutch solar EV startup that has gotten plenty of coverage on Electrek over the years. Most recently, we had the opportunity to test-drive the near production-ready Lightyear 0, the automaker’s flagship SEV that will see a limited production run of 946 units this fall.
Koenigsegg has a slightly longer list if production vehicles compared to Lightyear, but the hypercar developer has been in the game quite a bit longer too. The automaker’s first street legal production vehicle debuted back in 2002, back when the Lightyear cofounders were all probably in middle school.
Similar to Lightyear, Koenigsegg develops and produces many of the main systems, subsystems and components used in its vehicles in-house. Additionally, it has been adapting this strategy toward electrification in recent years. Particularly after selling a 20% stake in the company to Saab successor National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) in exchange for $171 million.
Since then, Koenigsegg has collaborated with Tesla tuner Unplugged Performance, while it continues to develop its own all-electric hypercars. Now, thanks to a fresh investment in Lightyear, Koenigsegg will look to swap notepads with the solar EV company so they can co-develop new EV technologies.
Lightyear and Koenigsegg team up to push vehicle efficiency
Lightyear shared the news of its latest investment and partnership in a press release this morning, sharing comments from both teams ,as well as some of their plans for the future. To what extent Koenigsegg is investing in Lightyear has not been disclosed at this point.
According to Lightyear, Koenigsegg’s technologies will be used to improve the energy efficiency of the Lightyear 2 – Lightyear’s more affordable and mass-produced SEV model slated to enter production in late 2024 or early 2025. Lightyear co-founder and CEO Lex Hoefsloot spoke to what it means to have a company like Koenigsegg in its corner:
Koenigsegg is top of the food chain in the field of high-performance sports cars. I’ve always admired their blend of incredible performance, design, and sustainable technology – this partnership shows we are clearly on the right track. I’m incredibly excited to be able to tap into decades of experience in designing and building aspirational cars, and look forward to working closely with Christian and his team to drive real change in the industry together.
Naturally, Koenigsegg CEO and founder Christian Koenigsegg shared his own thoughts on the new partnership and the current automotive industry as a whole.
The automotive industry is going through a massive transition to sustainable fuel and technology. Lex and his team have developed transformative technologies, and this partnership with Lightyear will ensure our products remain on the bleeding edge, which is great news for our customers.
We know that the two automakers will collaborate to further streamline the efficiency of the upcoming Lightyear 2, but not much else at this point. Still, it’s exciting to see two relatively small EV automakers who have been developing their own exciting technologies separately, teaming up to push the performance envelope even further. We’re excited to see what may come of it.
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