The Munich solar car startup Sono Motors starts a last rescue attempt for its first own car Sion.
The two Sono bosses and co-founders Laurin Hahn and Jona Christians announced on Thursday that financing the Sion program had become more difficult.
It is taking much longer than expected to collect the necessary money for the production of the electric car.
"We didn't manage to explain to the investors why the Sion has the potential to become the world's first affordable solar electric car and that there is also great demand for such a solution," it said.
A reservation campaign for 3500 vehicles should now bring in the necessary money.
"Should the campaign not achieve the expected success, Sono Motors will focus on the solar technology business in the future."
To date, Sono has received orders for more than 40,000 Sion vehicles from private individuals and fleet operators.
Sono plans to build a pre-series in the coming year, and the cars are to be produced on a larger scale from 2024.
The Sion should come onto the market at a price of around 30,000 euros and produce at least part of the necessary electricity from its own solar cells.
In addition to the vehicle project, Sono also offers its solar cell technology for commercial vehicles.
The plans were not well received on the stock exchange: the share slipped by more than 10 percent and was now quoted at just over one US dollar – when it went public a good year ago it was worth more than 38 dollars.
Sono has hardly generated any sales so far: In the third quarter there were total revenues of 138,000 euros, which were offset by a net loss of 43.5 million euros.
Sono's liquidity is still around 55 million euros - of which 30 million euros are attributable to a financing agreement.
It was only in May that Sono had raised 40 million euros in fresh money through a capital increase.