Solectria Owner Support (SOS) is an online support community for owners of electric vehicles and EV components manufactured and distributed by Solectria Corporation of Wilmington and Woburn, Massachusetts, USA. SOS is not affiliated with or related to Solectria Renewables LLC or Yaskawa Solectria Solar. "Solectria" is a trademark of Yaskawa America Inc. It is here used solely to identify electric vehicles and components manufactured and sold by the former Solectria Corporation. No infringement is intended.

Founded in 1989 by James Worden and Anita Rajan, Solectria Corporation developed and supplied industrial and commercial energy management and power generation hardware. They also supplied energy-efficient electric vehicles and EV components to vehicle manufacturers, utilities, educational institutions, nonprofit and state organizations, and individuals. Their vehicles included the Force hatchback and sedan, E10 pickup, Sunrise composite sedan, CityVan box truck, and Flash NEV micro pickup. Between 1991 and 2001, Solectria produced a total of about 400 electric vehicles.

In the mid-1990s, Solectria developed an advanced mid-size composite sedan, the Sunrise. Powered by a nickel metal hydride battery, Sunrise set an EV distance record of 373.6 miles on a single charge in the 1996 Tour de Sol, using just 117 watt hours of energy per mile. Late the following year, James Worden drove a Sunrise from Boston to New York (217 miles) on one charge, at normal highway speeds. Sunrise was designed for serial production, but only a few examples were ever built.

In 2001, Solectria stopped producing vehicles and focused on supplying EV components to other manufacturers. The same year, they moved to Woburn MA. Azure Dynamics acquired Solectria in 2005. Azure filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012.

Contact SOS

For help or information, email me at

1. REASON: Because I've read that if I collect email addresses and send people email, I should have a privacy policy, something other than "you have much more privacy here than at Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter, because nothing is going on behind your back."

2. AGREEMENT: By using any component of Solectria Owner Support (SOS), you agree to the terms of this privacy policy.

3. PERSONAL INFORMATION: To participate in the SOS discussion, you'll have to subscribe to the SOS email discussion list. The subscription process will collect your email address. You may (but aren't required to) associate a name with your email address. It doesn't have to be your real name.

4. GDPR NOTICE: By subscribing to this discussion list, you consent to Solectria Owner Support registering your personal contact details (email address; and name, if you wish), so that I can administer your subscription. You also consent to me or other EVDL representative(s) contacting you by email about your subscription and/or your interactions with the discussion list, when necessary. You may revoke your consent at any time by contacting me. When you do, I'll unbsubscribe you. However, your public SOS posts will be archived. That means that when you leave SOS, it won't be technically possible for me to delete all of the information that you've submitted.

5. INFORMATION SHARING: SOS won't sell or give your email address or name to anyone else. However, your email address and any name you've used will be revealed to other discussion list members when you post a message.

6. SECURITY: SOS will take reasonable precautions to prevent non-subscribers from obtaining your email address or name. However, computer security is never absolute, so SOS can't guarantee that outsiders will never be able to get your name or email address. A separate, disposable email address for participating in SOS is a good idea.

7. UNSOLICITED EMAIL: SOS won't subscribe you unless you explicitly request it. If you think that you've received unsolicited email from SOS, please contact me immediately with your email address. I'll investigate, and if I find your email address on our membership list, I'll remove it.

8. COOKIES: Your configuration page sets a browser cookie when you log in to it, so you don't have to reconfirm your identity with every change you make. It's temporary and it's cleared when you close your browser. SOS doesn't share any of your cookies with anyone else. Well, maybe double chocolate chip. Those taste better when shared.

9. TRACKING: SOS doesn't track you. I don't know or care what other websites you visit. I don't compile any statistics other than the default Apache webserver logging. The only time I even look at that is when something's broken and I'm trying to fix it.

1. I'm not much for this kind of formality, but I'm told that because SOS sends email to multiple people, we should have terms of service. Here you go.

2. By subscribing to and/or using Solectria Owner Support (SOS), you agree to SOS's terms of service.

3. You declare and represent that you are at least 18 years of age and that you are legally responsible for your own actions.

4. You consent to your email address and your name (if you supply it) being collected and stored by the SOS listserver.

5. You declare and represent that all the information that you submit to SOS expresses only your views, not those of SOS's owner, webmaster(s), administrator(s), or moderator(s).

6. You declare and represent that you have the legal right to display and/or share any material and information that you submit to SOS.

7. You declare and represent that you bear full legal and fiscal responsibility for any information that you submit to SOS.

8. You assign to SOS a non-exclusive perpetual license for any information that you submit to be distributed to our subscribers, and stored and/or quoted in our archive, FAQ, and any other official and unofficial SOS resources.

9. You agree to abstain from using SOS as a platform for personal or commercial promotion of yourself, or of any product or service under your control. This doesn't mean that personal announcements of Solectria vehicles or related parts or services for sale are prohibited, just that spam isn't welcome.

10. You agree and consent that SOS and its owner, webmaster(s), administrator(s), and moderator(s) will hold no liability, legal or otherwise, for your violations or infringements of these terms of service, or of any applicable laws.

11. You agree and consent that SOS's owner, webmaster(s), administrator(s), and moderator(s) have the right to suppress, remove, edit, move, or delete any material that you submit, at any time, for any reason, without notice or warning.

12. You understand and acknowledge that information posted through SOS is provided by SOS subscribers, who are individually and solely responsible for it. The SOS and EVDL staff (such as they are) don't control or monitor that information, or evaluate its utility or validity. The information posted may be inaccurate, obsolete, incorrect, and/or dangerous. Your use of it is entirely at your own risk. You agree to hold harmless SOS and the EVDL and their owner, webmaster(s), administrator(s), and moderator(s) from any legal liability arising from your use of the service and/or information provided through it.

13. You agree to be reasonably civil when using SOS, and to not post illegal, objectionable, or blatantly offensive material, or anything that promotes hatred, violence, or illegal acts.

14. Violation of these terms of service may result in the suspension or deletion of your account, recission of your posting privileges, and/or removal of your posts, without notice or warning. So there.

15. Solectria Owner Support (SOS) is presented as-is, warts and all, without any warranty whatsoever, be it expressed, implied, or statutory. Your use of the website, listserver, and archive is solely at your own risk.

16. You understand that if you or any of your IM Force are caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your operations.