Recently, at the 2022 International Consumer Electronics Show, Sony brought a new concept car. Remember that in 2020, Sony released the pure electric concept car VISION-S, and now its SUV version VISON-S 02 is coming.
Many people thought the VISION-S was Sony's self-amusing concept car, but it turned out they were wrong. Sony announced that it will officially launch Sony Cars in the spring of 2022, and mass production of products on the road may come sooner than we thought.
What about a new car?
The new car maintains the design language of the former sedan, just like the relationship between the Model Y and the Model 3, pulling the VISION-S sedan up, it becomes the VISION-S 02. The front face has penetrating headlights, and the logo is fused into the light strip, and the design inspiration may be derived from the movements made during the "qi" in traditional Chinese martial arts. There are ventilation openings on both sides of the bumper, and trapezoidal air intakes in the lower part can play a heat dissipation effect.
The all-black roof and smooth arc from the side give the illusion of no A-pillar, and the rear of the car also has a slipback effect. Electronic rearview mirrors are a common feature in concept cars, with concealed door handles and semi-enclosed wheels to reduce wind resistance. The new car uses a panoramic glass canopy, the light transmittance is very good but also has to face the problem of sun protection, the tail design is simple, a through-line light strip and headlights echo each other, in addition to no logo. Some foreign media said that its size is similar to that of Tesla Model Y.
The design of the car is also very simple, you can see that the vehicle has at least 5 screens in the picture, of which the center console is arranged horizontally with three screens, the sense of technology is very strong, but compared with the EQXX concept car released by Mercedes-Benz, it is still much inferior, in addition, there is no physical button on the center console, and the new car will be equipped with a newly developed intelligent car networking system and up to 40 sensor configurations.
The official has not yet announced the power parameters of this new SUV, but we can refer to the data of the sedan, equipped with dual motors in front and rear, with a maximum power of 400kW and about 544 horsepower.
Why does Sony build a car?
When Kazuo Hirai, the former president and CEO of Sony, was in office, he once proposed the "One Sony" strategic plan, which is simply to break down the barriers between Sony's various departments, integrate the top technologies of Sony's various departments, and make Sony's top series of products.
For nearly a decade, Sony had pinned its hopes on completing a high level of integration into these businesses on a single smartphone. However, Sony in the turbulent period, in terms of consumer demand understanding, sales and service channel development, brand marketing and communication, localization and adaptation, etc., has not kept pace with the times, and Sony, which was once a giant in the mobile phone field, has gradually become a minority in today's market.
However, Sony has not given up on the "One Sony" strategy, in addition to the mobile phone is still insisting, now they see the potential in the field of mobility. What Sony has to do is to make these black technologies, around the three concepts of entertainment, safety, and adaptability, presented in the most reasonable way on the car.
For example, Sony occupies half of the field of smartphone shooting sensors, and now Sony hopes to replicate this achievement in the field of automotive image sensors. In terms of entertainment, the multiple screens in the car will become the carrier of Sony's music, film and television, games and network service resources. Years of technical accumulation in the audio field, so that the whole car 33 speakers with 360 live surround technology, to the cockpit to bring a high sense of immersion experience. Finally, VISION-S 02 is an intelligent networked vehicle with 5G technology, cloud services, system OTA and other capabilities. Sony's hardware and software design capabilities for communication systems accumulated over the years in the development of smartphones can be ported to the development of smart cars.
Therefore, VISION-S 02 is essentially an inevitable product of the "One Sony Strategy", and is the best landing terminal for Sony to integrate its own technology after seeing the potential of mobile travel. Especially when Sony's mobile phone business intelligence is self-sufficient and cannot support the big dream of "One Sony", the car as a track with a larger volume and revenue scale, Sony's joining is a reasonable thing.
Is the new car still "made" by Sony?
The "soft and hard separation" of cars is the trend of the times, so it is becoming more and more difficult to judge the ownership of a car. But from the perspective of brand ownership, product definition rights, and the development rights of intelligent core components, VISON-S 02 is still Sony's car.
On the new car-making track, the core capabilities and core resources of the automobile industry are shifting, and who can grasp the right to define the product, who can grasp the ownership of the product.
Write at the back:
If these two concept cars will really be mass-produced, then Sony's headache is not a technical problem, but a series of market problems such as sales channels, user operations, after-sales service, and brand communication. Referring to Sony's performance in these aspects of the consumer electronics field, at least in China, Sony still has a lot of room for improvement.