Two of Japan’s biggest corporations— Sony and Honda Motors—announced that they will tie up to form a joint venture that will make electric vehicles. In a corporate statement, the two companies said, “Sony Group Corporation (“Sony”) and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (“Honda”) today announced that they have agreed to deepen discussion and exploration of forming a strategic alliance that aims to create a new era of mobility and mobility services.”
According to the statement, the companies will carry out discussions on specifics with regards to definitive binding agreements. The new company formulation is set to be completed by the end of 2022 and the first vehicle is supposed to hit the road in 2025.
“This alliance aims to bring together Honda’s mobility development capabilities, vehicle body manufacturing technology and after-sales service management experience cultivated over many years, with Sony’s expertise in the development and application of imaging, sensing, telecommunication, network, and entertainment technologies, to realize a new generation of mobility and services that are closely aligned with users and the environment, and continue to evolve going forward,” they added.
While the new company formed as part of the joint venture will plan, design, develop and sell electric vehicles, manufacturing will take place in Honda’s facilities while the new mobility service platform will be made ready by Sony.
Commenting on the development, Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO, Sony Group Corporation, said, “Sony’s Purpose is to ‘fill the world with emotion through the power of creativity and technology.’’ Through this alliance with Honda, which has accumulated extensive global experience and achievements in the automobile industry over many years and continues to make revolutionary advancements in this field, we intend to build on our vision to ‘make the mobility space an emotional one,’ and contribute to the evolution of mobility centred around safety, entertainment, and adaptability.”
A recently released analysis by Canalys revealed that around 6.5 million electric vehicles (EVs) were sold worldwide in 2021, up 109% from 2020. Compared to this, the report noted that the global car market grew just 4% in 2021 as it continued to struggle with COVID-19 restrictions and chip shortages. “EV sales represented 9% of all passenger car sales in 2021,” the report said.
The same report said the major markets for EV were China and Europe, with the two markets comprising 85% of the world’s sales.
This announcement by Sony and Honda comes shortly after another Japanese industry leader Panasonic had recently said that they are looking to acquire land to build a factory to manufacture a special new battery for Tesla cars.