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According to media reports, Izumi Kawanishi, senior general manager of Sony Group, revealed that the company may add new technology partners to its electric vehicle project to transform cars from vehicles into entertainment spaces, saying that self-driving and 5G technology could reshape the entire auto industry by turning cars into a travel platform for providing information and entertainment services. In addition, Quancheng Kawanishi, senior general manager of Sony Electric vehicle Group, who is in charge of Sony Electric vehicle project, also said: "We believe that ignoring electric vehicles brings more risks than challenges." the upcoming transformation trend of electric vehicles is to some extent similar to the process of information technology transforming functional phones into smartphones.

According to previous reports concerned by the automotive industry, in 2020 Sony officially unveiled its first pure electric concept model, the VISION-S, which locates a four-door pure electric sedan. The design highlight of the new car is the design of penetrating headlights before and after the appearance, which is jointly built by a number of companies, including NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Zaifu, Bosch, BlackBerry, QNX, Horse, Bentler, Magna and so on. The electric vehicle platform is jointly designed by Sony and Magna. In terms of body size, the VISION-S positioning is between Tesla Model 3 and Model S, but the wheelbase of VISION-S 3000mm fully surpasses Tesla Model 3 and Model S, which has more advantages in space area. In terms of dynamic performance, the VISION-S is equipped with double motors, the acceleration time of 100 kilometers is 4.8s, and the extreme speed is about 238km/h.

In December 2021, Sony Vision-S began public road testing in Austria to assess VISION-S security and Sony technology. In April 2021, Sony Group and Vodafone of Germany will begin the VISION-S Prototype 5G driving test in Oldenhoven, Germany. In view of the positive feedback during the VISION-S concept car trial in Europe, Sony officially confirmed the construction of the car at this year's International Consumer Electronics Show, and Sony brought a new concept car, the VISION-S 02, at the conference.

On January 5 this year, Sony's official website officially announced the new concept SUV of VISION-S 02. At the same time, Sony Chairman, President and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida announced that Sony Group will set up a new division, Sony Mobile (Sony Mobility Inc), which will focus on the commercialization of electric vehicles and is expected to be set up this spring.

Built by Sony's artificial intelligence team and robotics team, VISION-S 02 is equipped with a newly developed intelligent vehicle networking system and up to 40 sensor configurations, which makes VISION-S 02 a step further in hardware configuration. Sony stressed that a total of 40 sensors are installed inside and outside the new car, mainly to monitor safety conditions, and according to media reports, both VISION-S and VISION-S 02 have reached the L2 level of autopilot, and will reach a higher L4 level in the future.

In retrospect, Sony's entry into the car industry was not really a hot-headed decision. as early as in the era of Morita Akio (the founder of Sony), Sony's energy department experimented with a Soni fuel cell car when it was studying fuel cells. but it ended in failure for reasons such as vehicle power. Sony has also been laying out the auto market for the past two years.

So far, Sony has partnered with Magna, a well-known auto parts manufacturer, a supplier of well-known automakers such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, to produce two prototype electric cars in Austria, while Bosch, Valeo and Hungarian self-driving car startup AImotive are also involved in Sony's electric car project. In fact, for Sony, making cars requires huge investments in factories and equipment, implying that there are many uncertain risks in the car-building business, but the head of Sony's car-building business says it is more risky to miss electric cars. As for when the new car will be mass produced, the authorities have not yet released the relevant information.

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