At a speed of 85km/h, it drove for almost nine hours straight, covering a distance of 710 kilometers! According to the homonymous company, Lightyear, “this distance is the longest range an electric vehicle has ever achieved on 60kWh of energy.” For reference, the 2021 Tesla Model 3 Long Range has an average range of 455km on a 70kWh battery capacity. Lightyear also claims that “even the most efficient electric cars on the market today consume around 50% more energy at this relatively low speed.” Its goal, therefore, is to lower the energy consumption per kilometer in order to provide a lot of range on a small battery. Since the introduction of its first prototype version two years ago, the Lightyear One has been developed as a long distance cruiser and has four independent in-wheel electric motors. It consumes 83Wh/km and can accelerate from 0 to 62mph in less than 10 seconds. Thanks to its five solar panels, which add about 12 kilometers of range per hour of charging, a driver could ideally, in a very sunny country, travel for months at a time without having to juice up their vehicle. The Lightyear One will be released in the first half of 2022 and will cost approximately $177,000. If you’d like to see the EV hitting the record with your own eyes, you can check out the video below: Do EVs excite your electrons? Do ebikes get your wheels spinning? Do self-driving cars get you all charged up? Then you need the weekly SHIFT newsletter in your life. Click here to sign up.
