Aptera details, Lightyear 0, Tesla heat pump, luxury EV leases: Today’s Car News

Lucid offers one of many expected luxury EV leases tapping into federal money. Aptera details the first of its three-wheeled solar EVs due to have up to a 1,000-mile range. Tesla claims its heat pump is better. And Lightyear bails on its solar-car starting line and skips to the future. This and more, here at EV kind of cars. 

The Aptera Launch Edition solar EV detailed Friday will offer a range of 400 miles on battery power and potentially up to 40 miles of additional range per day from the sun—although it won’t offer Tesla Supercharging quite yet. 

Federal EV tax credit rules afforded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) last year now allow a credit of up to $7,500 to be applied to companies leasing EVs regardless of any price cap. That’s already starting to lead to some government subsidized luxury EV leases that, controversially, will apply to imported luxury EVs too. 

Lightyear announced this morning that it’s stopped production of the Lightyear 0 solar EV, due to financial issues. Instead it’s leaning forward to the mass-production Lightyear 2, it says.

And cold-weather EV range can be a problem, but heat pumps are part of the remedy. Tesla last week detailed what distinguishes its unit from the rest, and it goes so far as to claim that its design performs well in very cold weather where others fall short.

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