Sony Group Corporation (Sony) and Honda Motor Co. Ltd (Honda) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly develop and market high-end electric vehicles.
The MoU would then be followed by the establishment of a new joint venture (company) that will plan, develop and sell EVs produced by this joint venture. This new collaboration will see Honda, a long-established automotive manufacturer to offer its vehicle body manufacturing capabilities and its after sales service management, while Sony to provide its imaging, sensing, telecommunications, network and entertainment technologies to the development of this new vehicle.
Not wanting to miss out the EV race, both parties have laid out a very aggressive 3-year plan to go to market. The new joint venture is to be set up within this year of 2022, and they plan to launch the vehicle to the market in 2025. Considering the short span of time, we believe that Honda will leverage on one of its existing vehicle platforms for this new vehicle. Which platform that Honda would choose is anyone’s guess at this point.
Kenichiro Yoshida, Representative Corporate Executive Officer, Chairman, President and CEO, Sony Group Corporation said “Sony’s Purpose is to ‘fill the world with emotion through the power of creativity and technology.’ Through this alliance with Honda, which has accumulated extensive global experience and achievements in the automobile industry over many years and continues to make revolutionary advancements in this field, we intend to build on our vision to ‘make the mobility space an emotional one,’ and contribute to the evolution of mobility centered around safety, entertainment and adaptability.”
Toshihiro Mibe, Director, President, Representative Executive Officer and CEO, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. commented that “The New Company will aim to stand at the forefront of innovation, evolution, and expansion of mobility around the world, by taking a broad and ambitious approach to creating value that exceeds the expectations and imagination of customers. We will do so by leveraging Honda’s cutting-edge technology and know-how in relation to the environment and safety, while aligning the technological assets of both companies. Although Sony and Honda are companies that share many historical and cultural similarities, our areas of technological expertise are very different. Therefore, I believe this alliance which brings together the strengths of our two companies offers great possibilities for the future of mobility.”
In January 2020, Sony made headlines when it unveiled its own EV concept code-named ‘VISION-S 01’ during CES 2020, which what we can call as a direct competitor to Tesla Model S, considering the almost identical dimensions when compared to Tesla’s flagship model. Two years later, in January 2022, Sony announced its second EV concept called “VISION-S 02” in CES 2022. This time, Sony imagined how a Sony EV SUV would look like.
