I Sony’s flirtation with mobility have finally materialized with the partnership announced with Honda. A year ago, the Japanese tech company showed the Sony Vision-S, an electric car prototype that was already in the testing phase. In January of this same year, the company presented Vision-S02, an electric SUV to act as the older brother of the previous one.
Now, two months after Sony announced it was launching a mobility brand, we already know there will be a Japanese alliance. Indeed Sony and Honda join forces to launch new electric models. The goal is to implement some of Sony’s innovations for the development of mobility services and leverage Honda’s production capacity to make the new vehicles.
From the Financial Times they point out that this alliance will lead to one new company at the end of this year and that the launch of the first electric model born from this collaboration will not be seen until 2025.
Sony and Honda see a prolific market in electric cars
There is a new Eldorado in the tech sector and it is the electric car. The exponential growth undergone by the weight of software in vehicles has prompted technology companies to focus on this means of transport.
The arrival of aid to the ADAS guide which will be mandatory in all homologated vehicles from this month of May in Europe, theincrease in connected services or the interest in achieving full autonomy in the cars of the future have aroused great interest in companies such as Sony, Xiaomi, Apple or Google, among others.
At first, most rumors suggested that tech companies would have their own electric vehicles, taking advantage of the simplicity of these engines over traditional combustion engines. Furthermore, the brand image would be associated with cleaner and more attractive mobility for its type of audience.
Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO of Sony, said on purposeHonda alliance website: “Through this alliance with Honda, which has accumulated extensive global experience and achievements in the automotive sector over many years and continues to make groundbreaking progress in this field, we intend to build on our vision of” making the space of mobility exciting “and contributing to the evolution of mobility focused on safety, entertainment and adaptability “.
Toshihiro Mibe, CEO of Honda, assures instead that the new one ssociety “It will aim to be at the forefront of innovation, evolution and expansion of mobility around the world, taking a broad and ambitious approach to creating value that exceeds customers’ expectations and imaginations.”
This is what the partnership between Sony and Honda is all about. The automaker is forced to switch to electric cars if it wants to continue selling in Europe and Sony is building a new semiconductor plant in Japan to increase its chip production, a staple to control electronics in future models. Among other possible applications, according to CNBC point out that the sensors that Sony produces for its cell phones can be very useful for Honda.