As part of a recently announced restructuring plan in which defunct start-up Atlas Technologies (Lightyear) rose from the ashes of bankruptcy, it is auctioning off hundreds of assets to pay back its creditors and transition into a new business entity. Today, you can buy one of several Lightyear 0 prototypes as well as a bunch of other components used to assemble the solar EVs.
This past January, the original iteration of Lightyear declared bankruptcy, relinquishing its business to a Dutch legal and tax firm. This news was disheartening, to say the least, as fellow SEV start-up Sono Motors had recently abandoned its vehicle development; plus, we had just seen the first Lightyear 0 vehicles rolling off their assembly line a month or so prior.
The sorrow of losing an innovative start-up like Lightyear won’t last too long, however, as the remaining executives reemerged in February, vowing to restructure into a new company and continue its work in delivering the mass-market Lightyear 2 solar EV.
Atlas Technologies is now officially kaput to make way for the new slimmed-down business that has retained the original start-up’s IP and separate solar panel division. The solar EV start-up’s second try is called Lightyear Technologies – but it does not arrive without its fair share of carnage.
Through the restructuring, the original 600-person Lightyear team has been slashed to about 100, and although several major investors rallied behind Lightyear to resuscitate it, there’s still a lot of damage to creditors that needs to be resolved.
In early April, we shared that Atlas Technologies intended to auction off much of the assets from its past life in order to pay back its creditors. That day has now come, and there is an entire library of Lightyear components available for the public to buy, including 0 SEV prototypes.
Lightyear allows you to buy its past so it can move forward
Consumers may not have had €250,000 to buy a Lightyear 0 when its short-lived production began, but how about €24,000 for a working prototype? Or €7,600 for a validation prototype?
These bids are sure to go up, but this is a rare chance to buy one of the few (and early) working solar EVs in the world. Even as prototypes, they’re pretty sleek. Troostwijk Auctions is facilitating the sale of Lightyear’s assets online, which includes the opportunity to buy tons of various components in addition to the prototype vehicles.
Other items for sale include vehicle bodies, battery packs, electric motors, and even solar roofs. If I were an EV start-up, I’d be foaming at the mouth at this haul. Are you seeing this Aptera? The bid for five electric motors is at 480 euros right now.
As we’ve reported in the past, the newly formed Lightyear Technologies hopes the public will buy, buy, buy so it can repay its creditors from the bankruptcy filing and move forward from the whole ordeal.
The next step will be to nimbly utilize the fresh funds it has raised and rehone its focus on the development of the Lightyear 2. Even so, Lightyear 2.0 has already stated it will need additional funding in order to deliver a solar EV that consumers can actually buy… and not through a fire sale.
Author: Scooter Doll
Source: Electrek
