Head of Sony's car manufacturing business: The risk of missing out on electric vehicles is too high and we are looking for partners around the world

Financial Associated Press (Shanghai, editor Shi Zhengcheng) news, although the global consumer electronics giant Sony's stock price has suffered a sharp decline in recent days, but this setback does not affect the company's bet on electric vehicles and transformation into an entertainment space vision. According to an interview published by the media on Friday, Sony is now looking for technology partners around the world.

At the CES show in early January, Sony President Kenichiro Yoshida announced that he would form a new electric vehicle division to transform the experimental project launched two years ago into a business unit. Izumi Kawanishi, Sony's executive vice president in charge of the project, also has extensive experience in cutting-edge technology innovation, having led Sony's AI robotics division and launching the Aibo pet robot.

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Sony car "circle of friends"

In fact, the Vision concept car that Sony showed was extremely complete, but it was not built by the company itself.

Sony's car project is currently home in Europe, with prototypes from magna, a well-known auto parts manufacturer, in Austria. Magna is also a supplier to well-known car manufacturers such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota.

In addition to Magna, German auto parts manufacturer Bosch, French technology company Valeo, and Hungarian self-driving start-up AImotive are all in Sony's car project. Asked by the media if he would expand the "circle of friends", especially to absorb companies from China, Kawanishi said that Sony's selection of partners was based on what kind of technology these companies can bring to the electric vehicle project, and it has nothing to do with which country the company comes from.

It is not difficult to get started with electric vehicles

In the process of electrification in the automotive industry, many new players have been able to enter due to the bypassing of the technical threshold of the internal combustion engine. With autonomous driving, 5G and other technologies, cars are transforming from transportation tools to mobile information platforms, which is also the prospect of cross-border enterprises such as Sony, Apple, and Foxconn.

Kawanishi said that there are indeed challenges in building cars, but ignoring the risks posed by electric vehicle outlets is particularly serious. Vehicles are facing the same changes today as information technology transformed telephones into smartphones.

For Sony, building an electric car alone will require huge investments in factories and equipment. After the product is launched, it will also face competition with traditional car manufacturers such as Toyota, General Motors, and Volkswagen that have invested tens of billions of dollars to seize the market share of electric vehicles.