Written by | Little devil
At the CES North America 2020, Sony unveiled a four-door pure electric coupe concept Vision S, when Sony said it wanted to show the public its powerful technology from camera sensors to entertainment products.
However, unlike most concept cars developed to demonstrate technological technology, the Vision S has a high degree of completion in terms of both styling and powertrain, and Sony further carried out road tests on the vehicle after the release of the car.
After all kinds of actions, the outside world began to speculate whether Sony had plans to enter the automotive industry, but Sony never made a positive response.
Then at this year's 2022 North American CES show, Sony once again brought the same high degree of completion, and the concept SUV Vision S 02, which is based on the same electric platform as the previous concept coupe, and Sony's entry into the automotive industry has also become clear with the public statement of Chairman and President Kenichiro Yoshida.
Kenichiro Yoshida announced at a press conference that Sony plans to set up a mobility company this spring to study the possibility of entering the electric vehicle market and hopes to use its advantages in entertainment and sensors to play a greater role in the next generation of mobility.
"With imaging and sensing, cloud computing, 5G, entertainment technology, and a mastery of service content, we believe Sony, as a creative entertainment company, is well positioned to redefine mobility," he said. ”
Sony cars that are not optimistic
It's true that sony groups often take risks to become pioneers, from music players to consoles, but for the Japanese consumer tech giant, venturing into electric vehicles is likely to take the risk to the next level.
In fact, sony stock fell 7 percent after Kenichiro Yoshida announced the creation of a mobility company at this year's CES show, which seems to indicate that investors are not optimistic about the launch of electric vehicles equipped with sensors, consumer electronics and entertainment products, and that the risks and challenges facing Sony's entry into the car industry are too great.
Analysts said that in order to avoid the traditional car companies that dominate the individual user market, Sony brand cars mainly target markets such as car sharing and ride-hailing services, and are ready to create a connected car for it.
Research firm MarketsandMarkets estimates that the size of the "mobility services" market could surge to $40 billion by 2030 from about $3 billion last year.
But analysts also pointed out that if Sony wants to achieve effective competition, it must invest heavily in factories and equipment to push the Vision S unveiled two years ago and this year's Vision S 02 prototypes into mass production as soon as possible.
Kiki Nakanishi, chief auto analyst at the Nakanishi Research Institute in Tokyo, said of Kenichiro Yoshida's statement: "It will be a business that will be difficult to succeed."
Indeed, car manufacturing is not an industry that can receive immediate returns after the investment is made in the early stage.
Just like Tesla, the head car company in the electric vehicle market, although it launched its first electric car in 2008, until today, the entire automotive industry has been in a state of loss before the entire automotive industry has under its influence, and if it does not rely on investor support, it is difficult to survive after burning billions of dollars.
In recent years, as countries have tried to reduce carbon emissions by phasing out traditional fuel vehicles, the accelerated transition to electric vehicles may have allowed more tech companies to see opportunities to invade the automotive sector. After all, electric vehicles are much easier to manufacture than fuel vehicles.
For example, Apple in the United States, LG Electronics in South Korea, and Foxconn in Taiwan have all reached out to the automotive field, so it is not surprising that Sony has also joined the ranks of large technology companies trying to find opportunities in the automotive industry.
However, for technology giants, the threshold for creating an electric car that can be trusted by the public can be much higher than that of making a mobile phone or a TV.
First, these vehicles must comply with much stricter safety regulations than consumer electronics; second, their components must also withstand the harsh road and outdoor environment that technology companies don't have in building cars.
Takaki Nakanishi said: "Sony can't do what Tesla does, the obstacle is too big. He added that the easier path for Sony is to outsource car manufacturing to companies like Foxconn.
Sony has yet to say whether or how it makes branded cars, but it has recruited a well-established automaker to produce its prototype electric vehicles, a canadian partsmaker Magna's factory in Austria that also makes cars for companies such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota.
Other members of the project include German parts manufacturer Bosch, French automotive technology company Valeo and Hungarian self-driving car startup AImotive.
Possible risks
Although electric vehicles are still on a small scale in the global market, their sales growth rate has surpassed that of traditional fuel vehicles, and Tesla has benefited the most from investors' valuations of electric vehicles.
Tesla's current market capitalization is about four times that of Toyota, although the new company produces only one-tenth of the world's largest automaker.
The sudden rise of new electric vehicle companies not only surprised traditional car companies, but also brought them a huge sense of crisis, including Volkswagen, GM, Toyota, Stellantis and other mainstream automakers have launched a counterattack, planning to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the field of electrification to accelerate the product layout of pure electric models, which will further exacerbate the market competition environment of sony and other technology companies.
Just when tech giants like Sony and Apple decided to challenge the field because they didn't want to miss out on possible business opportunities in the electric vehicle market, on the contrary, in the eyes of other technology companies, the attractiveness of electric vehicles has been offset by their huge risks.
In 2018, James Dyson, inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner, abandoned his electric car plans because he believed that the excessive manufacturing costs of electric vehicles could not bring profitability in business.
Sony's rival in Japan, Panasonic, has also steered clear of mass-market electric vehicles, though auto parts, including Tesla batteries, are now a major source of business and profit for the company. A Panasonic spokesperson made it clear in an interview: "Panasonic does not consider producing Panasonic brand electric vehicles. ”【iDailycar】