Sony Group Corporation and Honda Motor Co., Ltd. have officially signed a joint venture agreement to establish a new company to engage in the sale of high-value-added electric vehicles and provide services for mobility.
The announcement is the furtherance and result of discussion of a strategic alliance in the mobility field between the parties as announced in the joint press release entitled “Sony and Honda Sign Memorandum of Understanding for Strategic Alliance in Mobility Field” on March 4, 2022.
The new company called “Sony Honda Mobility Inc.” will aim to bring together Honda’s cutting-edge environmental and safety technologies, mobility development capabilities, vehicle body manufacturing technology and after-sales service management experience, 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 for mobility that are closely aligned with users and the environment, and continue to evolve going forward.
Sony and Honda plan to establish the new company within 2022 and to begin the sale of EVs and provision of services for mobility in 2025. The establishment of the new company and the start of business are subject to relevant regulatory approvals.
Sony has already showed two electric vehicles of its own design, the Vision-S EV and Vision-S 02 electric SUV.
Honda, meanwhile also announced plans last year to shift its entire vehicle lineup to EVs and fuel-cell vehicles by 2040. As part of that, it’s going to invest $40 billion and launch 30 new EVs by 2030. Earlier this year it unveiled a partnership with GM to co-develop a series of affordable EVs using a global architecture and GM’s Ultium battery technology.
| New Company Overview (Planned) | |
| Company name: | Sony Honda Mobility Inc. |
| Location: | Tokyo, Japan |
| Capital: | 10 billion yen |
| Investment ratio: | Sony Group Corporation 50%, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. 50% |
| Members of the board: | Yasuhide Mizuno, Representative Director, Chairman and CEO Izumi Kawanishi, Representative Director, President and COO Shugo Yamaguchi, Director and Deputy President Kojiro Okabe, Director and Executive Vice President Manabu Ozawa, Director (Honda Motor Co., Ltd.) Naoya Horii, Director (Sony Group Corporation) |
