Japanese industrial giants Sony and Honda have announced their new electric car JV will be made in the USA.
It’s been said that the Inflation Reduction Act recently passed by the Biden Administration was less about getting electric cars on the road and more about bringing manufacturing and production jobs back to North America. If that was the plan, you could hardly argue with the results — established brands like GM, Ford, and Toyota are investing billions into American manufacturing. And now, they’re being joined by Sony and Honda.
The joint venture company is expected to begin producing something like the Sony Vision-S 01 sedan and Vision-S 02 crossover (above) by 2025, with deliveries to US customers beginning in 2026 — but don’t think that means the cars, which Sony first showed at CES in 2019, will be outdated by then.
Sony will provide the software system for the new car, from the onboard controllers to cloud-based services, as well as a “true” level 3 autonomous drive system that will allow for drivers to pay more attention to the content and software, and less to the road.
Unlike, you know — other companies’ offerings that can’t always tell the difference between “nothing” and “a parked airplane.”
“I am very pleased to have reached this day, which represents a major milestone in realizing the initiatives we have been working on until now with the aim of contributing to the evolution of mobility,” says Izumi Kawanishi, Representative Director, President and COO of Sony Honda Mobility Inc. “By combining the many strengths of Sony and Honda, we intend to accelerate development and lead the evolution of mobility by realizing mobility as an emotional space rooted in safety and security, and the related services.”
Sony Vision S Electric Sedan
SOURCE | IMAGES: SONY, VIA CLEANTECHNICA; REUTERS.
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