Sony gets into electric cars with the Vision-S

The Sony Vision-S was unveiled at CES 2020 in Las Vegas and marks the company’s first step into the electric vehicle market

The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2020 opened its doors yesterday in Las Vegas to showcase the latest technological innovations to the world. Throughout its editions, Sony has been one of the major draws of this event with its new consoles, televisions and other gadgets to liven up the living room. This year, however, the company has gone a step further and unveiled a new electric car called the Sony Vision-S.

Sony’s main reason for showing a new electric vehicle was to crown the company’s intense work in the field of mobility. In this way, it has placed on the CES 2020 stage a highly technological concept car that could easily rub shoulders with newly built electric vehicles such as the Byton M-Byte.

The Sony Vision-S can have Level 2 autonomous driving

The Sony Vision-S features no fewer than 33 installed sensors with which it can detect and recognise every object around it. Thanks to this, the company states that it is fully capable of incorporating a Level 2 autonomous driving system. You may still be unclear about how these systems are graded, so we recommend you read our feature where we explain what each level of autonomous driving consists of.

Sony has drawn on its extensive experience in multimedia systems by integrating two large monitors into the headrests of the front seats and a large panoramic screen spanning the full width of the dashboard. To further enhance this technological feel, conventional mirrors have been replaced by cameras, in the purest style of the virtual mirrors of the Honda e.

The company is also a real expert in delivering high-quality sound systems, so the Sony Vision-S features “360 Reality Audio”. This system can deliver surround sound to all occupants through several speakers installed in the cabin and in the seats themselves.

Based on a modular platform for electric vehicles

Sony’s chief executive, Kenichiro Yoshida, has stated that this prototype is based on a “newly designed modular platform”. It is therefore quite likely that they have turned to a solution such as the modular platform that Benteler and Bosch have been working on for some time.

In addition, Sony has enlisted the help of companies such as Bosch, Continental, NVIDIA and Qualcomm to create its first electric car. With their collaboration, the Sony Vision-S features two electric motors producing 268 horsepower. Thanks to these, it has all-wheel drive and fairly reasonable performance: 0 to 100 km/h in 4.8 seconds and a top speed of 239 km/h.

We do not yet know what the company intends to do with the Sony Vision-S, since it is not clear whether this prototype is merely a demonstration or whether they plan to take it into production. What is clear is that electric mobility is an opportunity for emerging companies such as Rivian, which will be responsible for manufacturing 100,000 electric vans for Amazon.