Sony-Honda Mobility to unveil its first electric vehicle concept at CES 2023

The new concept EV is expected to get support for Level 3 autonomous driving capabilities. Pre-orders for Sony-Honda Mobility’s upcoming EVs are likely to commence by end of 2025, with deliveries scheduled to start first in the United States by the first half 2026, followed by Japan in the second half of the year.

Yasuhide Mizuno, a senior Honda executive, is serving as the JV's chairman and CEO, and Izumi Kawanishi, an executive vice president at Sony, is the president and chief operating officer. SHM, in a statement, said that it aims to become a software-oriented ‘Mobility Tech Company’ by providing high-value-added products and services, and building new relations with customers.

The company claims to offer its new EV with features like:

Autonomy: SHM aims to develop Level 3 automated drive under limited conditions and to enable Level 2+ driver assistance in even more situations such as urban driving. Moreover, the company also claims that it plans to include hardware with a high-performance system on a chip (SoC) with total processing power exceeding 800 tera operations per second (TOPS).

Augmentation: The company also aims to develop a new human-machine Interface to provide a personalised in-car experience through cloud-service connectivity. SHM plans to introduce a seamlessly integrating of real and virtual worlds and offer entertainment and emotional space through digital innovations, similar to the metaverse.

Affinity: SHM also plans to build an open community for not only customers but also for other automotive industry players to create new mobility entertainment.

Earlier at CES 2020, Sony unveiled the Vision-S Concept (which was later renamed Vision-S 01). It later introduced its second concept vehicle called the Vision-S 02.