Honda and Sony are beginning to look like the best collaboration of car building and tech and entertainment. This is shown in their plans for the car which involved putting in a PS5. The electric car makers are already looking into making additions to the cars to make them more entertaining and as a way of challenging Tesla’s entertainment in the electric car department.
The Sony-Honda venture is looking to be the best in the electric car market entertainment-wise, as Tesla added an AMD RDNA 2 graphic chips in their model S and X. Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO explained that the chip is on the same level of putting a Play station 5 in the car, but so far most of the promises gave have not been fulfilled yet.
For instance, a year ago Elon Musk promised that the Tesla car will be complete with a demo for Steam and games like Cyberpunk 2077 and the original 2D Sonic the hedgehog. So the business collaboration between Sony and Honda is challenging as it is planning on adding a literal Play station 5, not just a chip that works like one.
However, the Honda and Sony venture managers have said that they are Looking for more than just entertainment. They want the car to deliver on the network too, as Yasuhide Mizuno explained. The senior managing officer of Honda Motor Company and the Honda-Sony venture chair said that the idea is to have content consumption on wheels.
The car will be made under Sony Honda mobility Inc. (SHM) and will be sold in Japan and the USA. SHM is a new software-oriented mobility tech company whose goal is to sell electric cars in the above-mentioned countries.
What are the makings of the Honda EV?
This car is said to be a fully electric car inspired by Honda’s 2030 prediction with the desire to improve the environment in busy urban areas in particular. The car has been engineered based on Honda’s philosophy of human-centered engineering. It has been engineered to deliver perfection in the sense of the urban environment.
The car concept will be defined by affinity, augmentation, and autonomy but the designs and technical details have been skimped for the time being. The Honda EV’s features will be based on what the buyers pay for, in the short subscription. That means that you’ll get tech and entertainment choices that you’ll pay for in the EV.
The fine details about the car are few, but what has been established is the fact that the car will have cloud-based personalized information that has the aim of offering what SHM is calling “ Entertainment beyond driving” that will take place in an emotional space. It has also been established that SHM is planning on using the metaverse as part of its digital innovations.
Why did Sony and Honda collaborate on the SUV?
We all know that Sony excels at entertainment and software building, while Honda excels are building cars. In the case of this car, Sony is expected to deliver more than entertainment. It also has to offer sensors and technological advances that will be used in making the car autonomous.
The President of this venture, Izumi Kawanishi said that achieving autonomy will take a little more time to achieve. There is hope the achievement is there because it is said that Tesla is struggling to get its autonomous systems to work. And not just them, but many car companies with the same ideas are failing to execute it well. But the companies together believe that they will be able to catch up to various electric car makers like Tesla.
Tesla has 160,000 beta versions running under its vision-based Full Self-driving.
As it follows trends set by other car makers, Sony and Honda believe that their car will bring a great difference to the business. Apart from Tesla, Honda EV will be facing challenges from the mood fragrance releasers, Lincoln Star, Hyundai’s ioniq 6 which boasts of personal space that’s like a Cocoon, and of course Tesla, which added a Netflix feature and has also added Tiktok.
Regardless of how much people spend on cars, one thing is for certain, if Sony adds the Okay station 5 to the Honda EV Vision-S 02, it will sell more than other brands in the automotive industry.
When and how will Sony Honda Mobility Inc sell the car?
In 2025, the company will start taking pre-orders for the car, and at the end of the year, the car will go on sale. The company will be focusing much on online sales and the first deliveries will take place in the spring of 2026, in America. Japan will follow suit in the second half of the year.
This is not the first electric car that Honda has worked on. The company just finished showing off the Honda Prologue SUV. It is a zero-emission concept that has a battery that offers 35.5 high capacity and it also provides a 222km(WLTP) range. It offers an 80 percent of charge if you charge it on a rapid charge for 30 minutes.
Its thermal management is built uniquely to optimize the battery in both high and low temperatures. That enables the car to have frequent and rapid DC charges and allows it to maintain optimal range capabilities.
On the other hand, Sony has been working on a new concept too, called the Vision-S 02 in January. It is also an Electric vehicle.
Sony and Honda joined forces in March of 2022 and signed their collaboration In 2022 June with the plan of having a 50/50 alliance and said they will be building partnerships with other companies on their work on the EV.
Honda hopes that their loyal fans won’t leave them as they are shifting to electric cars and even if SHM don’t own the car, their target audience will be similarly attached to it.