Text | Travel by wire, author | Zhou Xiongfei, Editor | midnight
The new energy car-making track has once again ushered in a large number of factory players.
Recently, the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicked off in Las Vegas, USA, during which Sony brought two major automotive products in addition to displaying its new electronic products, namely the VISION S concept electric vehicle and the VISION-S 02 prototype.
After the release of these two models, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida publicly announced that sony mobility Inc would be established after which it would be established, with the main purpose of "exploring the commercialization of Sony's electric vehicle business." ”
Sony 2022 CES conference, screenshot from the conference video
This means that Sony has also officially embarked on the track of new energy car manufacturing, which has also become one of the technology companies that have attracted much attention at the CES exhibition.
The news of Sony's entry into the car has attracted much attention, but the two models brought by Sony this time have not caused much sensation. Because in the industry's view, in addition to the unique brand logo, these two products are considered to be decent in terms of shape design and interior layout, and even some voices believe that their design basically draws on the characteristics of some new energy mass production models in China.
Behind this, perhaps hidden sony's ambition to conquer China's new energy vehicle market.
As we all know, since 2010, China began to lay out in the field of new energy vehicles, and with Tesla officially landing in China in 2014, the domestic market has set off a wave of new energy car manufacturing. After more than 8 years of development, China has become one of the largest markets for new energy vehicles in the world.
For this, Sony is also very aware of this, because it has always been in the Chinese market. Since Sony entered the Chinese market in 1978, after more than 40 years of development, the Chinese market has become an important overseas market for Sony. Correspondingly, Sony's PS5, cameras and TVs and other electronic products are also deeply loved by domestic consumers.
Sony's familiarity with the Chinese market is undoubtedly also regarded as its advantage in entering the domestic new energy vehicle market. At present, Sony's car has stepped on the electric door, can its electric vehicle products gain an advantage in the Chinese market?
01 Start to build a car, intended to be in China?
"Sony will redefine (vehicle) mobility."
At this CES show, Kenichiro Yoshida said this sentence in a high profile, and behind him, it is to do this thing to launch the two major model products, namely the pure electric concept model VISION S and the pure electric SUV prototype VISION-S 02.
At the same time, he also said at the press conference that "in order to further accelerate the development of the mobile experience and make new proposals, Sony plans to establish an operating company, Sony Mobility Inc" this spring." ”
According to Sony officials, the new company aims to make the best use of AI and robotics to help achieve a world where everyone can live in harmony with robots. In terms of business, in addition to the travel business dominated by the VISION series, it also includes sub-segments such as autonomous entertainment robot aibo and drone Airpeak.
Kenichiro Yoshida dared to come up with these bold and ambitious goals because Sony had been experimenting with them for a long time.
As early as 2017, Sony has released an electric concept car SC-1 similar to the square box shape, according to the official introduction, the SC-1 is just an experimental vehicle, through which Sony is exploring a new means of travel different from traditional cars.
Sony SC-1, image source Sony official website
After this news came out, the industry speculated that Sony was going to lay out in the field of new energy vehicles, but there was no relevant news after that.
Until 2019, Sony announced again that it would officially put the SC-1 concept car into mass production, but this model will not be mass-produced for the mass market, but will cooperate with some leisure industries to be used as a park vehicle. In other words, the SC-1 will only be produced on a small scale as a prototype car, and this car is also quite different from the real passenger car, so this action is not a real entry for Sony.
But after that, Sony's news in the field of "car building" has increased.
In the same year as the launch of the SC-1, some media revealed that Sony was seeking cooperation with automotive-related parts manufacturers on a large scale; at the CES 2020 exhibition, Sony launched the first pure electric concept model, which was the VISION S unveiled at this exhibition.
According to Sony, VISION S is not built by Sony itself, but brings together many partners around the world to create products, including Qualcomm, NVIDIA, ZF, Bosch and Magna and other upstream and downstream supply chain giants, once regarded as the "star model" created by the "star team".
Then, at CES 2021, Sony took it a step further in the field of car building – announcing that the prototype of the VISION S, launched the previous year, had completed development work and releasing a video of the car being tested on public roads in Austria, Europe.
In the video revealed by the official, it can be seen that the test model can well identify the vehicles, objects and pedestrians on the road, and can be judged and avoided.
As a result, Sony once again became the focus of many media reports at the CES 2021 show, and at that time, in the industry's view, Sony has completed the development of the whole vehicle and road test tests, and it should be very soon from the mass production and listing of this model.
What many people did not expect is that Sony will officially enter the car market at this year's CES exhibition and bring its second model product. "According to the rhythm of Sony's release of two cars, it is very similar to the rhythm of playing of domestic new energy car companies such as 'Wei Xiaoli', which can be seen in Sony's determination to enter the game and build cars." Sun Hao, head of research and development of a domestic head car company, told Wired Travel.
In fact, there are many similarities.
First from the appearance of the two models, VISION S and VISION-S 02 are very in line with the mainstream design style of pure electric models in the industry, the overall body has adopted a streamlined design, in order to reduce wind resistance, both models have adopted hidden door handles and low wind resistance wheel hub design.
But if you look closely, you can see some familiar shadows from the two models. For example, for VISION S, its appearance is very similar to the ME-S of the domestic new energy vehicle company Tianji Automobile, so that shortly after the release of the former, Tianji Automobile "connotation" in its official Weibo, indicating that the two cars "art" is the same; in addition, there are also voices that believe that the appearance of VISION S is also similar to the Xiaopeng P7 that has long been mass-produced.
Skyline Auto Reviews VISION S, screenshot from Skyline Auto Official Micro
The new VISION-S 02, in terms of appearance, is very similar to the VISION S, except that the former is positioned as an SUV model and the latter is a coupe model.
Looking at the interior, VISION S and VISION-S 02 both adopt a simple design style, using a large-size full-touch screen in the front row, from left to right, full LCD meters and two multimedia displays, so that multi-screen interaction can be realized.
This design style, "Wei Xiaoli" and other new energy vehicle companies have long been adopted in their respective model products, and it should be noted that such a multi-screen linkage, Sony is not the first. Such designs can be seen in the Ideal ONE, and even in the bytem M-Byte, which was released earlier but not in mass production.
The electronic exterior mirror design used in the two new models is not unusual. At this year's Guangzhou Auto Show, BAIC's newly launched "Rubik's Cube" model has adopted this design.
From the shape design, to the interior style, it can be seen that Sony is very similar to the models of some domestic new energy vehicle companies in the design of the model, so there are also voices in the industry that Sony may be learning from domestic new energy vehicle companies, and its purpose of doing so, in Sun Hao's view, can not only accumulate successful car-making experience to accelerate its own progress, but also prepare for its subsequent launch of products in the Chinese market.
It is not surprising that there is such speculation.
Judging from the size of these two new models launched by Sony, there is one word that stands out: big. For example, vision S length, width and height are 4895 *1900 * 1450mm, wheelbase is 3000mm, this size is similar to the POSITIONING OF THE LARGE AND MEDIUM CAR NIO ET7.
VISION S (right) and ET7, image source website information
In contrast, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, as the three giants of Japanese car companies, have basically focused on the positioning of small and compact models launched in China in recent years, such as the body size of the Leiling Dual Engine E+ is 4645 * 1775 * 1480mm, which is much smaller than the VISION S.
The size of the VISION-S 02 is 4894*1930*1651mm, the wheelbase is about 2900mm, and the positioning belongs to a medium-sized SUV; in contrast, Honda's eNS1 is positioned as a compact SUV, and the size of the two is also much different.
Sony's two new models are larger in size, and the purpose behind them may also be to better adapt to the habits of Chinese consumers. Wired Travel has believed in many articles that Chinese people prefer larger models for automobile products, so that old car companies such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz have also launched larger models for the Chinese market.
Although the model products have not yet been mass-produced and listed, in the industry's view, Sony has most likely calibrated the main market for products as the Chinese market, and Sony is not without reasons for doing so.
02 How attractive is the Chinese auto market?
For a long time, on the track of the global automotive industry, China did not have much advantage.
Because the European, American and Japanese automobile industries started early, and soon in the country gave birth to Ford, Chrysler, BBA, Toyota, Honda and other old car companies, these car companies also rely on Ford T, Crown and other explosive models to sell their products around the world, which also laid the foundation for the strength of these countries in the automobile industry.
Toyota "Crown", image source Toyota China official micro
China's automobile industry has only begun to have a more obvious development trend from the 1970s, but the gap between domestic automobile production and the United States and other countries at that time is too large. For example, in 1978, domestic automobile production was only 149,000 units, while the United States could produce 12.87 million units in the same period.
In order to change this weakness, China began to encourage domestic car companies such as FAW, SAIC and BAIC to cooperate with established car companies such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Toyota through the joint venture model, trying to promote the development of the domestic automobile industry through this model.
But in the end, due to the blockade of these foreign car companies on related technologies, domestic car companies did not get too many core technologies in the end, so that although the production scale and market size of domestic automobiles in those years have been improved to a certain extent, there are still some gaps with foreign automobile industries in terms of technology.
But by 2010, many people saw a turnaround.
In that year, the State Council identified new energy vehicles as one of the seven strategic emerging industries, and then in order to promote the development of the new energy automobile industry, the state launched a policy called "ten cities and a thousand vehicles", and soon Wuhan, Shanghai, Hefei and Xiangyang and other cities began to promote the popularization of new energy buses in their respective cities.
Four years later, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk coming to China with more than a dozen Model Ss, a wave of new energy car manufacturing was officially set off in China. Unlike previous years' wave, this wave focuses on new energy passenger cars that are closer to consumers.
For a time, Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal and Weima and other new energy vehicle companies have been established, according to the incomplete statistics of online travel, as of the end of 2016, the number of domestic new car manufacturers has reached more than 190, coupled with the state's subsidies for new energy vehicle companies in those years, so that the domestic new energy vehicle track has become a blue ocean of competition.
In addition to the competition between new energy vehicle companies, many domestic cities in those years are also actively competing for these emerging car companies.
For example, in April 2016, the Hefei government took the lead in brokering the cooperation between Weilai and Jianghuai Automobile, which brought Weilai into its own industrial cluster; in the same year, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, also successfully attracted WM Motors to settle in its own city, so that the relevant person in charge of Wenzhou City called it "the realization of Wenzhou's 30-year automobile dream".
WM Motor Wenzhou Intelligent Automobile Industrial Park, image source WM Motor official micro
The following year, Xiaopeng Automobile and Ideal Automobile also "held hands" with Zhaoqing City in Guangdong Province and Changzhou City in Jiangsu Province, and settled their factories and production bases in these cities.
The reason why these cities will do this is also to compete for the title of "New Energy Vehicle Capital", and Lianxing has been in "Giving Subsidies, Competing for Car Companies, Grabbing Resources: Who Can Become the "New Energy Vehicle Capital"? This has been elaborated in the article.
It has to be said that with the support of national policy dividends and the help of local city governments, the domestic new energy automobile industry has not only completed the development transformation from barbaric growth to maturity, but also enabled car companies such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal to achieve growth.
Up to now, the three "Wei Xiaoli" have achieved listing in the United States, Xiaopeng and Ideal even achieved a secondary listing last year, and the stock prices of the three new energy vehicle companies once surpassed the stock prices of ford, Chrysler and other established car companies last year.
In addition to the stock price, the new car-making brand represented by "Wei Xiaoli" has gradually been accepted by the market and consumers, the most obvious example is the increase in sales. Looking back at the sales volume of the three companies in the year, the monthly sales of more than 10,000 were basically achieved in the second half of the year, and the annual sales volume was also approaching 100,000 vehicles.
Under the combined effect of the above many factors, the Chinese market has become one of the most important markets in the field of new energy vehicles in the world.
According to Xiangcai Securities, global sales of new energy vehicles will exceed 6.4 million in 2021, of which the Chinese market will reach 3.3 million, an increase of 140% year-on-year. This data was also predicted by Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice chairman of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred Association, at the media communication meeting of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred in December last year.
He also believes that this is still a conservative prediction made under the condition of batteries, chips and production capacity, and if the demand is completely looked at, the domestic new energy vehicle sales data will be higher.
After the Chinese market, the European market is close behind, reaching 2.2 million vehicles in 2021, an increase of 60% year-on-year; the third largest market is the US market, reaching 600,000 vehicles. According to IDC, sales of China's new energy vehicle market will exceed 5 million units by 2025.
China's new energy vehicle market sales forecast 2020-2025, screenshot from IDC official website
It can be seen that the Chinese market has become the world's largest new energy vehicle market.
As a result, traditional car companies such as BBA, Toyota, honda and other traditional car companies have announced in the past two years that they will deploy more new energy vehicle business to the Chinese market in order to gain a dominant position in the future; and overseas manufacturers such as Foxconn and Apple have also set the main market of their own car-making business in the Chinese market, also in order to get a "piece of the pie" of the future intelligent terminal.
These purposes are also applicable to Sony, which has officially announced the construction of the car.
After all, Sony has always had a strong accumulation of technology in the fields of electronic products, sensor semiconductors and other fields, and it is also extremely eager to seize the future intelligent terminals; and the Chinese new energy vehicle market, which has experienced a reshuffle and has a large space for development, and the gradual increase in consumer recognition and acceptance, will also be of great help to the future development of Sony's car-making business.
As a result, in the industry's view, China's new energy vehicle market is a stage that Sony must choose. After determining this, Sony also needs to think about a question - can it survive in the Chinese market?
03 Sony Cars, do you have a chance in the Chinese market?
To discuss this issue, let's first look at what are sony's advantages and disadvantages.
The first is the advantages. For the Chinese market, where Sony Cars is likely to focus on layout, Sony can be said to be very familiar with it. Sony's entry into the Chinese market can be traced back to the domestic reform and opening up period, when Sony came to the domestic market with home appliances such as video recorders, and successively established offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
By October 1996, Sony (China) Co., Ltd. was established in Beijing, which was also the first branch of Sony in China, and by the end of 2001, Sony had established a total of 20 branches and offices in China.
As more and more companies have been set up, Sony's sales in China have also extended from video recorders and DVD players to home appliances such as digital cameras, rear projection color TVs, notebook computers and projectors. Since 2000, Sony has begun to put more digital devices such as mobile phones and PS2s into the domestic market based on the original product system.
From 1978 to now, Sony has entered the Chinese market for more than 40 years, and the products sold to China have basically covered all fields of digital electronic products, from smart TVs to digital cameras, from PlayStation series products to VR-related products, from noise-canceling headphones to robot education kits.
The products sold by Sony to China are screenshots from Sony China's public information
Because of this, the Sony brand has gradually evolved into a well-known brand in the domestic consumer market, and this is the biggest advantage of Sony's car layout in the Chinese market, after all, the rich user group is also extremely important for selling cars.
In addition to the user base, based on Sony's layout of electronic products in recent years, it also has a certain technical accumulation in the fields of sensors and cameras, and it should be noted that these devices are also the main sensing equipment of new energy vehicles.
For example, at the CES exhibition, Sony said that compared with last year, the perception devices on the concept car this year have increased from 33 to 40, and the car-grade lidar chip called IMX459 has become another highlight of the conference.
According to Sony's official introduction, IMX459 is based on Sony's double-layer image sensor stacking technology, coupled with the use of SPAD (single photon avalanche diode) technology, based on this chip, lidar companies can create thousands of equivalent ultra-high-definition radar, so that cars can see farther and clearer.
It can be seen that Sony's self-developed chip, coupled with the intelligent ecological system that has been laid out before, can grab a certain advantage in the future smart car battlefield. Sony may also be well aware of this advantage, so at this year's CES exhibition, unlike the interior and exterior design of the concept car shown in the past, it focuses on the advantages of the intelligent aspect of the concept model.
It can be seen that Sony cars still have some advantages in the Chinese market, but just like the coin has a positive and negative side, Sony will also face some challenges in the future battlefield of China's new energy vehicles.
Entering the battlefield of China's new energy vehicles, products are Sony's most important "weapons", but in terms of some parameters officially announced, the advantages will not be great.
As mentioned above, vision S and VISION-S 02 are decent design in terms of body shape, and there are not too many highlights; and in the interior, not only there are no obvious highlights, but also very similar to the ideal ONE in design, and the overall design lacks innovation.
In terms of power, according to official data, VISION S will be equipped with two 200kW motors, the drive mode is dual motor four-wheel drive, 0-100km/h acceleration time is 4.8 seconds, and the top speed can reach 240km/h. Vision-S 02 officially did not publish detailed parameters, in the industry's view, it is likely to use the configuration of VISION S.
If you put this dynamic parameter into the whole industry, there is not much advantage. For example, the Weilai ET7, which is also a medium and large coupe with VISION S, is also paired with dual motors in front and rear, but it can reach 3.8 seconds in 100 km/h acceleration, successfully entering the 4-second threshold.
The only thing that can be called a highlight is that the driver and occupants can play PlayStation games in the VISION S car, and with features such as 360 Reality Audio audio and gesture control, it can greatly enhance the entertainment function of the car.
VISION S in-car entertainment multi-screen linkage, image source Sony China official micro
But it is undeniable that these functions are not new, because the models that have been mass-produced, such as Tesla's models, can play games in the car, BMW, and some new energy models under Changan can also achieve in-car gesture control functions.
That is to say, through the only parameter data released by Sony, it can be seen that its two models do not have much innovation from the inside out, or more are referring to some existing model designs, so after it is really launched in the Chinese market, it may not be able to get the favor of Chinese consumers.
The lack of innovation can also be seen in Sony's previous mobile phone business.
Around 2001, Sony and Ericsson each 50% of the shares founded Sony Ericsson, Sony entered the field of mobile phones, although at the beginning with the music mobile phone W800, so that Sony Mobile phone occupies some advantages in the global mobile phone market.
But with the advent of the mobile Internet era in 2010, the strong rise of Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei and OV, so that Sony's mobile phone business gradually lost its advantage, so that by 2020, Sony mobile phones fell into the "Others" of the sales list.
In the final analysis, the biggest reason why Sony mobile phones lose their advantage is because they are too conservative and do not know how to innovate. For example, in the era of smart phones, wireless flash charging, reverse charging, off-screen fingerprints and other technologies are basically difficult to see on Sony mobile phones, so that it is difficult to gain advantages on the smartphone track with serious internal volumes.
"As with the previous mobile phone business, Sony is currently more hesitant and will not innovate in the car business, from the action of the past two years, Sony is more in the temptation, rather than preparing for the real car and selling cars, although the car has been launched, but the mass production listing schedule for Sony, should still be planning." Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, told Wired Travel.
It should be noted that while Sony is hesitant to make cars, the entire new energy automobile industry will not stop and wait for it, especially the Chinese market, which it focuses on, which is becoming increasingly fierce and rapidly changing.
From new car-making forces such as "Wei Xiaoli", to traditional car companies such as FAW, Geely and Changan, to foreign-funded car companies such as BBA, or To Jidu, Huawei and Zhiji, there will be new layouts and product launches in the field of car manufacturing this year, and it is conceivable that for Sony, which has not yet had a mass production schedule, the pressure is huge.
At present, although Sony has officially announced that it has entered the bureau of car manufacturing, to see the real performance of its models in china and even the global new energy vehicle market, it will wait for the day when it is mass-produced and listed. But what is certain is that for Sony, building a car and entering the Chinese market is a must-do thing, after all, Sony has missed the era of smart phones, and the era of smart cars must be seized.
(At the request of the interviewee, Sun Hao is a pseudonym.) ）