Sony Honda Mobility includes Level 3 autonomy in the new EVs

Sony and Honda have announced that pre-orders for their first electric vehicle (EV) model will begin in the first half of 2025. Their joint venture, simply known as Sony Honda Mobility Inc. (SHM), hopes to begin deliveries in the United States (US) and Japan in 2026.

Hence, for those looking to purchase an EV bearing the Honda logo will have to wait another 4 years.

While Sony focuses on developing in-car software and entertainment systems, Honda will supply the drivetrain and manufacturing expertise along with its plan to produce their first model in North America.

SHM's goal is to develop a Level 3 autonomous driving system, which means that its cars will eventually be able to drive themselves in certain conditions on top of introducing a new human-machine interface with cloud service connectivity.

More than that, SHM has defined its high value-added EV concept as the 3As for Autonomy, Augmentation, and Affinity which derives on a common principle shared by both Sony and Honda which is to contribute and lead the evolution of mobility.

Following next, the plan consists of transforming mobility space by seamlessly integrating real and virtual worlds other than to explore new digital innovation like metaverse. 

Although the new EVs have not been displayed, two of Sony's EV concept cars with the Vision-S sedan and Vision-S 02 crossover model were previewed years ago during CES 2020.

On a different note, the collaboration intends to have online sales similar to the Tesla approach which prices might be somewhat expensive.

Apart from creating an open community for not only customers, SHM also invites other key players in various industries via an comprehensive mobility experience service which includes a consistent framework of in-vehicle software cloud to cloud-based software.