The New Honda & Sony EV is likely to feature PlayStation technology in a bid to take on the likes of Tesla.
We all remember the days of aftermarket TV and games console installs, but now it looks as though Honda and Sony will be channeling the vibes of the early 2000s when building their new EV.
News broke earlier in the year that the two Japanese giants would come together to enter the world of electric mobility, forming a new as-yet-unnamed brand. However, when starting from the ground up in a market as hotly contested as the car industry, you’ve got to have something that sets you apart. For some, it’s price. For others, it’s style. But for the new Honda & Sony EV, entertainment appears to be the answer.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Izumi Kawanishi (president of Sony Honda Mobility) stated that “Sony has content, services and entertainment technologies that move people. We are adapting these assets to mobility, and this is our strength against Tesla.”
So, no ambiguity there then. Elon Musk is firmly in Sony’s crosshairs, but it’s not just in-built Playstation 5 tech that they’ll be using to try to topple Tesla from its EV throne. Apparently, Sony’s vast offerings in music and film will also be added to the car’s arsenal, though we’re yet to see how all of this will come together in reality.
According to Yasuhide Mizuno, another key player within the new organization, the final result may look rather different to any car cabin experience we’ve seen before. He says, “we will develop a car as hardware that will cater to the entertainment and network we would like to offer.” – rather than the other way around. In fact, this sort of approach was hinted at when Honda unveiled its cool and quirky Honda E city car a year or so ago; a vehicle which focuses intently on interior features and exterior styling, more so than any of the dynamic stuff.
Now, you may wonder why Honda & Sony are putting so much effort into entertainment features that aren’t typically compatible with, y’know, driving… Well, the answer to that is actually quite obvious once they tell you.
Despite many other tech titans like Uber and Google backing away from the challenge in recent times, the new Honda & Sony EV project is keen to chase the self-driving dream as far down the rabbit hole as possible.
As Kawanishi puts it, “To enjoy the space in your car, you have to make it a space where you don’t need to drive. The solution for this is autonomous driving.”
Now, having said that, Sony Honda Mobility are at least being realistic about the timeframe that will be required to achieve such a goal. For instance, its first car is due to hit North America in 2025, but there’s no suggestion that they’ll have cracked the autonomous code that quickly. Instead, this is very much a long-term project, that if done right, could potentially change the world of personal mobility forever. At worst, these premium cars will act as a nice little showcase of Sony tech features, which can then be sold off to other established marques.
Whichever way you look at it, one thing is clear: unlike Dyson and Apple, Sony’s intentions to build a car appear to have legs. But, is this sort of vehicle really what people want? Or are Sony and Honda barking up the wrong tree entirely?
Colour us intrigued…
