Who is new in the world of electric vehicles?

This is Sion from Sono Motors

The Sion is a very special car. In my opinion it is what many little children think of when they are playing. The idea is simple, the implementation most likely rather not. If you have an electric car there is at some point the urgent need to charge your batteries, in Germany this is called range anxiety (Reichweitenangst). That can take 20 minutes for 80% with fast-charging or take hours at the normal outlet of one's home. But just imagine your car would be charge at any daylight time while parking outside. Sounds crazy? How about the charge is free? Impossible!

Not quite! The main advantage of Sono Motors' Sion are the 7.5 square meters of solar panels that cover the outside body of the car, which charges the batteries up anytime the car is parked outside. Every day it will gives you an extra charge of averaged 30 kilometers a day. Most people drive an average of 50 kilometers a day, so you can imagine that most people using this car, which is designed for urban purposes, will drive to work for free or at least very, very cheap.
Sono Motors is a small, young, crowdfunded start-up from Munich in Germany. They created their car in a long developement process in their own garage and put a lot of lifeblood into their work. Starting at 12.000€, with a clear and nice design this car is a real newcomer on the EV market. The Urban version will go for 120 km in one charge and the Extender up to 250 km.
But it is not only designed for driving to work or the grocerystore, the Sion is an adventurer. With his trailer hitch it is strong enough to explore the nature and pull a caravan at the same time. While your are enjoying the outside the Sion will charge his battery for you and all your electric devices. You will be free in nature but stay connected to anything you fell like connecting to.
Test drives start in mid 2017.
Furthermore, reSono will be launched. It is an easy to use repair service, where Sono Motors will send you spare parts and anyone can build them in with online videos. That saves carbon emissions and money for the costumer.

In my opinion this is an awesome idea made by real visionairs. The car is perfect for urban areas, determined by size and range. The daily free charge is a real game changer for people who are afraid they will strand somewhere without energy in the battery. For the city of Alcoi this is a fantastic solution. Alcoi is not very big so the range is definitley enough, for the Extender it is even enough for a trip to Valencia and back. The Spanish sun will make the final point for my argument.

https://www.sonomotors.com/

- Lennart

This is us: Sustainable Seven

¡Hola! - This is us:

We call ourselves the Sustainable Seven, since we are a group of seven multidisciplinary and international students studying "Smart Sustainable Cities". We are working on a project for the municipality of Alcoi in Spain. Our goal is to reduce the CO₂ emissions produced by traffic in order to make Alcoi a more healthy and sustainable place. We will have a look at various concepts that could change how people will use public transport or use locally emission free vehicles.

In the picture above you can see us, personal introductions can be find in the earlier blog posts, with two of our tutors. Javier (third from left), from the Universitat Politècnica de València, and Erlijn (third from right), from the Hogeschool Utrecht. Both of them will guide us if we have questions about our project. The photo was taken this Thursday at a co-working space of our University here in Utrecht. We created multiple concepts concerning waste management for the Rijkswaterstaat, the dutch Ministry for Infrastructure and environment.

We are all very excited about our task in Alcoi and expect to learn a lot about how to structure the mobility in a city in an innovative and sustainable way. Furthermore, we will extend our knowledge in many different ways including methodology and organizing a long term group work. Also we are happy to get the opportunity to explore the area of Alcoi, Alicante and València.

"Teamwork. Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much."

                                                                                - Helen Keller