After Sony and Honda announced plans to form a separate company for their joint electric vehicle partnership, they’ve now given it a name. Yes, the new business is called Sony Honda Mobility Inc. and will be established in Tokyo before the end of 2022, with EV sales set to start in 2025, Sony said in a press release.
Each company holds an equal 50 percent share, with Honda executive Yasuhide Mizuno appointed chairman and CEO, and Sony EVP Izumi Kawanishi president and COO. As Sony detailed previously, the partnership will utilize “Honda’s cutting edge environmental and safety technologies, mobility development capabilities, vehicle body manufacturing technology, and after-sales service management experience.” Meanwhile, Sony will contribute “imaging, sensing, telecommunication, network and entertainment technologies.”
Honda is far behind rivals in EV development, with its only electric car being the Honda E — but it’s accelerated its plans of late. Earlier this year it unveiled a partnership with GM to co-develop a series of affordable EVs using a global architecture and GM’s Ultium battery technology. The aim is to have Honda and Acura SUVs going on sale in North America by 2024.
Honda also announced plans last year to shift its entire vehicle lineup to EVs and fuel-cell vehicles by 2040. As part of that, it’s going to invest $40 billion and launch 30 new EVs by 2030. Sony, meanwhile has already showed not just one but two electric vehicles of its own design, the Vision-S EV and Vision-S 02 electric SUV. It’s not clear how all Sony Honda Mobility fits into all these plans, but we should be learning more about it in the near future.
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