Sony and Honda Wait for 2026 To Produce Their First EV
The joint venture set up by Japan's Sony and Honda is aiming to deliver its first electric cars by 2026.
Initially, the vehicles of the joint venture, called Sony Honda Mobility (SHM), will be sold in the US and Japan. The two companies are considering a market launch in Europe, but no time frame has yet been set for this. SHM has not yet announced sales in other countries.
Production will not take place in Sony's and Honda's home country, but in the USA, for which Honda only a few days ago announced investments worth billions for the production of e-cars and batteries.
SHM's new electric car is to be in the premium segment and will have an entirely new software system developed by Sony, paving the way for recurring revenue from entertainment and other services that will be billed monthly as a subscription, the two companies said. The car will become a kind of "rolling smartphone", say managers of the joint venture. Compared to traditional electric car competition, SHM's unique selling point will be its software, says Izumi Kawanishi, president and CEO of the joint venture, who comes from Sony.
Sony Honda Mobility has not yet disclosed further key details, such as prices, battery range, performance or the platform of the new e-car. While Sony is concentrating on the software system during development, Honda is responsible for everything vehicle-specific. The plan is to equip the e-car with Level 3 autonomous driving technologies, which will allow drivers to pay more attention to the digital content and software services on offer.
In Level 3 systems, drivers no longer need to pay attention to the road or operate the steering wheel but must be able to take control of the vehicle at any time. "As technology for safe driving evolves and the concentration required to drive decreases, we should consider new ways to enjoy and spend time in the passenger compartment as a whole," Kawanishi says. He speaks of a "space of entertainment and emotion".
Yasuhide Mizuno, chairman and chief executive of the joint venture and a senior Honda executive, said the project was attractive for Honda to build a "longer-term relationship" with its car buyers as the vehicle becomes more of a connected device. Sony and Honda had already announced in March that they would produce electric cars together. At the time, the word was that the car would hit the road in 2025. Sony had already presented two e-car prototypes in the years before: The VISION-S 01 electric sedan was shown at CES 2020, and the VISION-S 02 E-SUV at CES 2022. It is still unclear whether SHM's first vehicle will be the production version of one of the two concept cars.