Munich-based Sono has attracted engineers from Nissan, Opel and Honda to develop the Sion, an electric car clad in crystalline silicon cells, which give the vehicle up to 30 km (18.6 miles) of electric charge a day.

In a tweet published on Saturday, the company said, "Instead of giving up who we are, we decided to fight for what we believe in. By launching one of the biggest community funding campaigns in Europe. For a world in which every car on the street is electric and shared."

(Reporting by Edward Taylor, editing by Louise Heavens)