In December 2019, Laurin Hahn and Jona Christians had a decision to make. They could take venture money and the strings attached, or go back to the people who had already paid deposits on a car that did not yet exist. They said at the time that conventional financing would have meant giving up their principles and the rights to their patents. So they went back to the crowd.
It is a choice that only makes sense once you know how they began. Early reports describe a basement and a home garage in Munich, and a pair of teenagers, as TechCrunch put it, building a solar car prototype. Hahn is described as an electrical engineer by training; Christians as someone who studied computer science and experimental physics. Navina Pernsteiner completed the trio when Sono Motors was formally founded in 2016.
Crowdfunding was not a gimmick for them. It was the only door open. The first Indiegogo campaign raised about 550,000 euros from 1,686 backers, and a Seedrs round added 1.8 million. Business angels Matthias Willenbacher and Marita Hansen backed them early. In July 2017 two working prototypes, built with the small-series maker Roding, were shown off.
The real test was the 2019 campaign. The aim was 50 million euros by 30 December. The date passed; they extended to 20 January 2020 and ended with about 53.3 million euros in pledges, though not all of that was binding. Reservations for the Sion reached around 13,000.
The problem with promises is that they must be built. In November 2021 the parent listed on NASDAQ and raised about 135 million dollars. Production moved from Sweden to Finland. Then the money would not stretch. In 2022 the founders appealed to the community with a #savesion campaign for 3,500 more pre-orders at a minimum of 26,900 euros each.
In February 2023 they ended the Sion. Insolvency under self-administration followed in May. A restructuring plan and an investor deal in November 2023 saved the company; the application was withdrawn in January 2024 and the business shifted to a solar kit for buses and trucks, now under the SonoSolar name. Reports in 2026 say bankruptcy has since returned.
The founders' original instinct was sound: the customers were the investors. The weakness was not belief but arithmetic. Reservations are not revenue, and a car is a factory before it is a car.