Xiaomi smashed 10 billion yuan to develop cars from scratch last year, and Sony, which is also in the digital field, actually has long planned.
"Sony Motors" was officially announced
Today (January 5th) at CES 2022, Sony officially unveiled a concept car called VISION-S 02, and announced that Sony Motors will be officially established in the spring of 2022 and will be commercialized. In other words, Sony will officially enter the field of automobile manufacturing and become another digital enterprise that "builds cars in the sea".
Sony released its first concept car, the VISION-S, in two years
As early as 2 years ago at the CES show, Sony released its first concept car VISION-S, when Sony said that the car was just its attempt and exploration of related technologies in the automotive field, and Sony would not really manufacture and sell cars. But two years later, the momentum of new energy vehicles has covered the world, forcing Sony to readjust its decisions and finally take this step.
The new car looks like a Model X, and the interior is full of screens
Let's take a look at the concept car first, the VISION-S 02 is different from its predecessors and becomes an SUV. The body design pursues simplicity and smoothness, but the model outline is quite similar to Tesla's Model Y and Model X.
The vision-S 02 has a closed grille design on the front face and a penetrating LED daytime running light at the front. The physical rearview mirrors were eliminated instead of streaming, and the concept car featured low-wind resistance wheels with at least 21-inch tires. The side of the body can be seen with a clear arc on the roof, the D-pillar part has a large curved back design, while the rear is relatively straight, but fortunately, a concave surface is added to the design, making the entire rear of the car look less boring.
In terms of body size, the new car has a length, width and height of 4895/1651/1930mm, a wheelbase of 3030mm, a minimum ground clearance of 157mm, and a body weight of 2040 kg. In terms of size, the body width of this concept car is a little narrower, and there may be room for improvement in the mass production car.
The interior of the car shows Sony's hard power in the digital industry, and a whole row of interior tables is surrounded by screens. The center adopts three large screens, the outermost two sides are streaming media rearview mirror displays, and the T-shaped area of the center console is expected to be the control screen of the system in the car. The new car will also be equipped with up to 40 sensor hardware, and the degree of intelligence in the car should be quite outstanding.
Sony official has not yet announced the power and battery parameters of the new car, we refer to the VISION-S 01 concept car released by CES in 2020, the new car or will be equipped with front and rear dual motors, the maximum power of 400kW, 0-100km/h acceleration within 4.8 seconds.
At present, among the world's top 500 technology digital enterprises, only Xiaomi is openly building cars. Although Apple Cars is no longer a secret, Apple officials have been silent. Sony tried to build a car 2 years ago, but it wasn't really in the market. The official announcement of "going to the sea" also brought a new concept car, it can be seen that this VISION-S 02 is very close to the production model in the exterior interior, and we are likely to see Sony's production model within this year.
Write at the end
Without the two natural barriers of internal combustion engines and gearboxes, new energy vehicles with a large amount of electricity as energy have become another big stage for traditional electronic digital enterprises to show their space. In fact, compared with Xiaomi, the two major digital giants of Apple and Sony have a lot of experience in in-car interaction and functional experience, which has become the most anticipated place in their automotive products.
Imagine if a car has a built-in PS5 game console, comes with a full-frame stacked CMOS, with a G Master optical lens camera, and has a car audio that can play Hi-Res sound quality, and a high-quality BRAVIA display in the car, such a car may be of interest to many people.