Honda Motor announced today that it has officially signed an agreement with Sony Group to establish a joint venture Sony Honda Mobility, which will sell “high business value-added” electric vehicles and provide travel services.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Sony and Honda will each hold 50% of the shares, totaling 10 billion yen. Mizuno Yasuhide, the former head of Honda China, will serve as the joint venture’s chairman and CEO, and Sony Mobile’s president and CEO Kawanishi Izumi will serve as the joint venture’s president and COO.
- Board of Directors: Representative Director, Chairman and CEO Yasuhide Mizuno
- Izumi Kawanishi Representative Director and President and Chief Operating Officer Shugo Yamaguchi Director and Vice President
- Kojiro Okabe, Director and Executive Vice President Manabu Ozawa, Director (Honda Motor Co., Ltd.) Naoya Horii, Director (Sony Group of Companies)
The establishment of a new company and the start of business are subject to approval from the relevant regulatory authorities. The new company will begin operations in 2022, with sales and service expected to start in 2025.
According to reports, today’s announcement is the advancement and result of the two parties’ discussions on the strategic alliance in the mobile field announced in a joint press release on March 4, 2022, entitled “Sony and Honda sign a memorandum of understanding for a strategic alliance in the mobile field”.
The new company aims to combine Honda’s cutting-edge environmental and safety technologies, mobility development capabilities, body manufacturing technology, and after-sales service management experience with Sony’s expertise in imaging, sensing, telecommunications, networking, and entertainment technologies to achieve close integration with users and the environment and continued development of a new generation of mobility and mobility services.
Honda has previously set itself long-term goals, such as increasing sales of new energy vehicles to 40 percent of total global annual deliveries by the end of the decade. By 2035, that percentage is expected to grow to 80, before phasing out internal combustion engines altogether in 2040. To achieve this, Honda will launch a new purpose-built electric platform, dubbed the e: Architecture, which will be available on a range of U.S. vehicles before entering other markets.
