At the CES 2020 show, no one expected that Sony hid a big Easter egg at the end of the conference, VISION-S - a concept car from Sony, which was properly on the headlines of many media on the day.
Fast forward 2 years, Sony has not let go of when this car will be mass-produced, but the information about vision-S car has been released one after another.
Time has changed, today we look at the VISION-S car, is it still cool? What exactly is Sony's plan for this car?
Strictly speaking, according to the official name, the full name of VISION-S is VISION-S01, because at the 2022 CES show, Sony also brought an SUV prototype (VISION-S02), both on the same platform.
Vision-S01 is first of all a large size electric vehicle, when Sony's official website shows that vision-S01 body 4895mm, wheelbase reached 3000mm, wheelbase is longer than Porsche taycan.
But look at it again today, the vision-S01 wheelbase is 30mm more than two years ago, according to the latest data on the official website, the VISION-S01 wheelbase has reached 3030mm.
The body mass is still 2350KG, the front and rear dual motors drive, each motor power reaches 200kW, in addition to air suspension, the vehicle ground clearance is between 120mm-135mm, a total of 4 seats, 100 km acceleration time of 4.8s.
VISION-S01 and VISION-S02 are built on the same platform, and Sony's statement is that this EV platform can be shared not only with coupes, but also with cars, SUVs, MPVs and other models.
Based on the same pure electric platform, vision-S01 and VISION-S02 body length and wheelbase are exactly the same, only in terms of body height VISION-S02 is slightly higher, in addition to vision-S02 as a pure electric SUV to provide 7 seats option.
▲Sony VISION-S01 and VISION-S02 two concept cars
It should be said that the two vehicles of VISION-S01 and VISION-S02 are completely consistent in other aspects, such as the electric drive system, chassis configuration, software architecture, etc. in addition to the size and space size in the physical sense.
The relationship between the two is similar to that of tesla Model 3 and Model Y, vision-S01/02 (hereinafter referred to as VISION-S) both vehicles combine Sony's in-vehicle sensors, AI, 5G and cloud technologies.
According to the latest information on Sony's official website, VISION-S is equipped with up to 40 sensors of various types inside and outside the car, including 18 CMOS image sensors, 18 millimeter wave and ultrasonic radar, and 3 lidars.
In the car, vision-S front row including electronic rearview mirrors, streaming media rearview mirrors including a total of 7 screens, plus two entertainment screens in the rear, the whole car up to 9 display screens, and support touch, gesture control, physical knob control mode.
The front row of the central control screen and the rear two screens can also be connected to the Sony DUALOCK4 wireless controller, sitting in the VISION-S car, charging boring waiting time, picking up the wireless controller to play the PS series of games is no problem, this should be Sony at the beginning of the planned functional experience.
Coupled with VISION-S's 5G network capabilities, car owners can fully enjoy cloud-based entertainment services that require low latency and wide bandwidth, such as streaming movies, music and games.
In addition, for the in-car entertainment system, VISION-S also applies Sony's exclusive 360 Reality Audio audio system, voice assistant, in-car driver monitoring and other technologies.
Regarding the driver assistance system, Sony proposed a concept of a "safety cocoon", that is, "with sensing technology that surpasses human vision, the system can provide a 360-degree view of the vehicle's surroundings and synchronously monitor the driver situation in the car".
At present, VISION-S can achieve L2+ level assisted driving capabilities, and in the future, OTA can be upgraded to L4 level.
However, the point is that the entire VISION-S is currently equipped with sensors that should be used in the car driver monitoring or assisted driving systems and almost all come from Sony itself, including three lidars.
The Sony IMX390 sensors are used for electronic mirrors, perimeter view, in-car electronic mirrors, and for driver monitoring, while several cameras located directly in front of long-range ADAS systems are IMX424 and IMX456 sensors.
Including the IMX390, IMX424, IMX456, including three camera sensors are vehicle-grade products, of which the IMX390, IMX424 is also a product released by Sony earlier, its development was at the beginning of the preparation for the ADAS advanced driver assistance system.
The three car-grade solid-state lidar (IMX459) on vision-S are also developed by Sony, and the IMX459 can measure up to 300 meters and cost 15,000 yen (about 835 yuan) per piece.
▲Sony car specification solid-state lidar (IMX459)
However, the ADAS system adapted to Sony's sensor hardware comes from AImotive, an emerging autonomous driving company in Austria, after Sony has also begun to conduct auxiliary driving road tests of its VISION-S prototype in Austria.
But when will vision-S be mass-produced? Will Sony be directly involved in the automotive industry to become a car company? It should not be said that it will not be.
Vision-S is likely to eventually not be mass-produced, in Sony's planning, VISION-S two cars may play a test platform role for a long time, and Sony's ideas for the future of smart electric vehicles will be released through VISION-S.
The launch of VISION-S for Sony, like a drunkard is not a drunkard, with the help of VISION-S Sony can show its own solutions for the future intelligent electric vehicle in-car entertainment system, can show Sony's hardware support capabilities for smart electric vehicle ADAS system and other technologies.
To be an upstream supplier of the future intelligent electric vehicle industry instead of personally building a car is what Sony pursues.
However, will everyone hope that VISION-S mass production, Sony directly off the field to build the car?