In South Korea, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche are threatening fines of 55 million euros. The Ministry of the Environment in Seoul accuses the companies of violating exhaust gas regulations. BMW admits “irregularities”. Bloomberg via Getty Images Porsche dealership in Seoul Thursday, 09.11.2017 16:50 South Korea wants to impose fines on the German automakers BMW, Mercedes… Continue reading South Korea imposes millions in fines against German manufacturers
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Small savers against VW – a process marathon
337,000 Germans once saved on a “KdF car” and never got the dreamed car, after the war their money was gone. When they sued Volkswagen, the group resisted with all the harassment. Getty Images / Culture Club Tuesday, 01.05.2018 09:56 clock Due to the diesel gate scandal Volkswagen AG is currently threatened with damages claims… Continue reading Small savers against VW – a process marathon
Skoda employees receive twelve percent more wages
End of a week-long dispute: Skoda increases the salary for its employees in the Czech Republic by twelve percent. The automaker is one of the largest and most important employers in the country. Skoda Vision X Friday, 06.04.2018 22:19 The employees of the Czech VW subsidiary Skoda get twelve percent more money. The Kovo union… Continue reading Skoda employees receive twelve percent more wages
MICHELIN forges stronger ties for its 2018 mountain bike programme
Le Champion du monde d’enduro 2017, SAM HILL, a rejoint l’équipe Michelin, convaincu par les performances des pneus en Enduro avec notamment les 2e et 4e places au championnat ENDURO WORLD SERIES Elite d’Adrien DAILLY et Jérôme CLEMENTZ, ou par le titre Champion du monde Master décroché par Karim AMOUR. Trois pilotes qui, cette année… Continue reading MICHELIN forges stronger ties for its 2018 mountain bike programme
Lightyear Investor Cafe: this is only the beginning
Martijn Lammers — Co-Founder
We have held our first Investor Cafe.
During this evening we presented our plans to a select group of people from our network. We informed them on what we are doing and what our plans are for the near future. We would like to thank all attendants, especially our ambassadors Camilla van den Boom, Maarten Steinbuch and Ton Backx.
Goals
The goal for this evening was to slowly start putting our mission out in the world and get valuable feedback on our plans & story. Mobilising our network to help us has proved a good strategy to test our plans against a larger group of interested people of various backgrounds. It is extremely motivating to see a growing group of people interested. Their feedback gives us a clear overview of what parts of our plans to focus on. We do this to continuously keep learning and improving.
First investors
Attendants of the investor cafe got the first, exclusive, opportunity to be among the first investors in Lightyear. To..
FAQ: How does a solar car work?
Arjo van der Ham — Co-Founder
A solar car is a car that uses the sun as its main source of energy. You might know some experimental solar cars from the World Solar Challenge, a biannual 3000 km challenge through the deserts of Australia.
The first known long distance solar car is The Quiet Achiever. Built by the brothers Larry and Garry Perkins, this car crossed the Australian continent from west to east in 1982. It reached an average speed of 23 km/h. Over the years, battery and solar technology have improved. A lot. In 2013 the World Solar Challenge introduced the Cruiser class for more practical family cars. Today the technology is at an adequate level to start the development of commercial solar cars.
How do solar cars work?
At its core, a solar car is an electric car – one with an unlimited, free and wireless power source which it takes anywhere it goes. Basically, a solar car consists of a solar panel, a battery and one or more electric motors. All these parts are co..
The seemingly impossible car
Arjo van der Ham — Co-Founder
Technology today is evolving faster than ever. When you stop and think about it, the possibilities seem endless. Every day, a lot of great (or to be honest, most of the time not-so-great) ideas pop into my, our, or your head. Although the seemingly impossible ideas are hard to achieve, it does not have to imply that they are bad ideas. That’s why at Lightyear we like to do some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations to check the feasibility of some of those ideas.
Before we founded Lightyear, we used to meet every Thursday evening to do just that. After concluding that we wanted to start a business to make this world a better place by combating climate change, we started looking for the best solution. The first step we took was to investigate the underlying causes of human induced climate change, and we quickly found the following graph:
Total greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands, 2014, World Resources Institute.
We were s..
When cars and solar energy meet
Lex Hoefsloot — Co-Founder
Energy is the ability to do work. It is the reason why we have progressed into a highly prosperous society within 200 years. Energy veteran Gregg Maryniak showed me this graph that puts the whole story into perspective. Looking at this timescale, it suddenly becomes clear that fossil fuels are just a blip in history. In a very short time, fossil fuels gave us prosperity and the ability to accelerate all aspects of human development. Sadly, we all know that these energy sources came with a dark-side. We will inevitably switch to a new energy source.
Fossil fuels are just a blip in history. source
Despite the fact that this ‘blip’ is associated with massive amounts of energy, scientists are in fact quite certain that we can produce the same amount of energy using solar and wind power. Isn’t it fascinating how we are heading towards a future in which we can produce many times more energy using solar and wind power than mother nature has been ca..
Lightyear wins €100 000 in Postcode Lottery Green Challenge
Martijn Lammers — Co-Founder
We have joined the finalists on stage at the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge. The four other finalists came from all over the world to pitch their companies in front of an international jury (http://www.greenchallenge.info/info/juries). Lightyear will use the 100,000 euro cash prize to accelerate the development of their first car, the Lightyear One. Several preliminary rounds preceded the finals. Out of a total of over 500 companies the five finalists remained.
“All the problems we have had with zero emissions vehicles, those belong to the past now.” – Lex Hoefsloot, CEO of Lightyear during his pitch at the Green Challenge finals.
On June 29, 2017 the Dutch startup Lightyear officially announced their plans to bring a commercial solar car to the market in 2019. The first vehicle, the Lightyear One, is an electric four-wheel drive car that can handle rough terrain and has a battery range of 800 kilometers, charged by the sun. Production of th..
We’re in the finals of the Postcode Loterij Green Challenge!
Martijn Lammers — Co-Founder
From over 500 companies, we are one of 5 finalists in the Postcode Loterij Green Challenge. The finale is set to take place on 14 September in Amsterdam. Lex will be pitching, competing with the other companies from Denmark, France and Rwanda. The winner will take home €500.000.
The Postcode Lottery Green Challenge is one of the world’s largest annual competitions for sustainable entrepreneurship organized by the Postcode Lottery (active in The Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and Germany). The Postcode Lottery Green Challenge encourages green start‐ups to send in creative and innovative business plans for products and services that contribute to a low carbon economy and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
We’re excited to be in the finals!
Being one of five Finalists means that we have already been awarded €100.000. During RTL Summer Night, a late night talk show, to which we were invited to talk about our company. During the inte..