The Japanese tech giant unveils its second electric car prototype at CES. He, too, remains a test vehicle.
The electric SUV Vision-S 02 is the second test vehicle that Sony is launching at CES Las Vegas.
The best proof that vehicles are increasingly becoming mobile infotainment devices is provided by an entertainment electronics company. The Sony Group plans to launch a subcontractor called Sony Mobility in the spring to deal with the technology giant’s entry into the automotive market.
As early as 2020, Sony surprised people at the CES technology fair in Las Vegas with an electric car prototype. The Vision-S 01 was created with the support of Magna Steyr, Bosch, Continental, Benteler and ZF and looks a bit like a Japanese alternative to the Tesla Model S.
The second surprise will follow at CES 2022. The unveiled SUV prototype Vision-S 02 is also an electric car, and it too should help explore the mobility market for Sony. In particular, the use of sensors and imaging elements is at the center of the evaluation, a domain of the Japanese company.
Focus on infotainment
But this second test car is not yet a commitment to Sony’s entry into electromobility, as Sony boss Kenichiro Yoshida emphasized at the launch in Las Vegas.
“With our imaging and sensor expertise, our cloud services, 5G and consumer electronics, combined with our pioneering role in visual content, we at Sony are well positioned to redefine mobility,” added Yoshida.
Even if Sony had to give up its leadership role in the entertainment electronics sector to other Asian companies such as Samsung Electronics, the manufacturer has special sensors that can be decisive for autonomous driving. Then there is the important area of digital cameras that Sony covers.
For Yoshida, mobility is an entertainment area for the use of audiovisual media in conjunction with 5G connectivity. Accordingly, the two vehicle prototypes for Sony are pure test vehicles with no production ambitions. The Vision-S 01 has been on a test drive in Europe since December 2020. The SUV that has now been unveiled was created on the same vehicle platform and is likely to fulfill the same experimental purpose.
Kenichiro Yoshida, President and CEO of the Sony Group, explains at CES 2022 that the prototypes will remain pure test vehicles.
The Sony move comes at a time when the areas of established automobile manufacturers and those from consumer electronics and the Internet are beginning to overlap more and more. Companies such as Apple, Google, Foxconn and other non-mobility groups are pushing into the car market, be it with operating systems, entertainment electronics or complete vehicles.
Sony car not to be expected
Sony will not be able to tread the path to its own electric car without outside help. For this reason, there are still no comments from the tech giant about the planning of series vehicles.
Even a company like Apple has had a hard time building electric cars, but is now about to launch its own iCar again. Google, with its sister company Waymo, has given up building its own self-driving cars and, with Google Automotive, has transformed itself into a supplier of operating systems for vehicles such as Volvo, Polestar and those of the Stellantis Group.
Sony will hardly consider the step to become an automaker – especially not in the strictly regulated Japanese market. The two prototypes should therefore remain individual pieces, pure finger exercises for evaluating new products that could soon be used on a large scale by car companies.