Troostwijk Auctions, a Netherlands-based company specializing in bankruptcy sales, has got rid of all remaining prototypes and unused spare parts of the world’s first all-solar energy car, the Lightyear 0.
The highest bid for the prototype that the company used for design and testing purposes reached a low €32,000. The production car was estimated at €250,000 MSRP – eight times as much.
A startup firm known as Atlas Technologies revealed the Lightyear 0 last summer. It had a record-high 5 square meters (nearly 54 square feet) of solar panels plastered all over the body, which the startup claimed was enough for up to 7,400 kilometers (4,600 miles) of free driving per year.
As it surfaced in early 2023, Atlas Technologies was lacking the funds to finance the third-party manufacturer it picked for the production. Following a failed investment search, the company went bankrupt and had some of its assets auctioned off.
All pre-production vehicles sold are not street-legal due to their unfinished status and can barely accelerate to 20 km/h (12.4 miles per hour). Other items put up for auction included experimental chasses and spare parts of all kinds – batteries, motors, solar elements and half-assembled car bodies.