What's happening with Sony's "automotive plan"?

At CES 2022, Sony unveiled its second concept car, the  Vision -S 02  SUV  . At the same time, Sony Chairman, President and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida announced that Sony Group will establish a new division, Sony Mobility Inc., which is  expected  to be  officially established this spring and will focus on the commercialization of electric vehicles. Vision-S 02 was created by Sony's artificial intelligence team and robotics team... Could Sony's operation create a new direction for an electric vehicle company?

Note: Dyson tried one step at making cars but didn’t continue.

Figure 1 Sony's two Vision S concept cars

Part 1: Highlights of the Vision S Series

Sony's Vision-S series of concept cars is led by Sony's artificial intelligence team and robotics team (robot dog product Aibo), and is made by a bunch of other companies, including NVIDIA, Qualcomm, ZF, Bosch (many components), BlackBerry, QNX, Conti (a large number of ECU development), Benteler (chassis and batteries), Magna (entire EE design), etc. The biggest feature of this series is that the Vision-S body is equipped with a complete set of sensors for high-level autonomous driving, with the purpose of providing panoramic images, 360-degree sound effects, full-time connectivity and other features.

The 40 sensors on Sony Vision include:

16 Cameras - 8 external cameras, including 4 surround cameras (IMX390), 2 side and rear cameras (IMX390*2) +, and 2 side cameras (IMX490*2); 8 internal cameras, including two front-view stereo cameras (IMX490*2), two ToF cameras (IMX456*2), 1 driver monitoring camera, 1 driving recorder, 1 rear camera, and 1 internal electronics camera;

As well as 18 ultrasonic/radar sensors and 4 LiDAR sensors.

Figure 2 Sensor distribution of Sony Vision-S

Currently, the prototype of Sony Vision-S has been publicly tested on the road in Austria. Logically, this is a technical demonstration of all those involved in building the entire system. Based on 5G technology, many perceptual electronic technologies can be connected between the vehicle system and the cloud at high speed, high capacity and low latency. That is, through Sony, the partners have also developed VIsion-S into an entertainment space based on mobility. The most important thing for Sony is to have a display channel to reflect Sony's advantages in content, gaming experience and audio. Through the exploration of VIsion-S and through the partners who support these actions, we have a better understanding of this direction.

After carefully studying Sony's business structure, we find that Sony has become a company centered around game consoles and content (music + movies). The electronic products that we traditionally know as Sony's main business now account for less than a quarter of its business, and image sensors CIS have become a very important business.

Figure 3 Sony FY21 Q2 business structure

In other words, the VIsion-S concept car project, which was part of the Electronics Products & Solutions division, has now become an independent business unit. In this sense, Sony is different from Apple today - Apple can keep spending money on Apple Car (it is said that Apple has recently allocated a lot of resources to work on AR and the metaverse). Sony must be burning money like Dyson, so what is the purpose of setting up this business unit?

Figure 4 Sony's concept car belongs to a small department

Part 2: Sony's CIS and LiDAR

A big part of Sony's Tech Day was LiDAR:

Figure 5 Sony's LiDAR video

The most important thing is that the proportion of Sony's current CIS business in automobiles is very low. In other words, Sony's image sensor CIS part is currently limited to Japanese automakers in the development of new business. Sony wants to use its advantages in the mobile field through the demand for ADAS.

Figure 6 Sony’s forecast for CIS in the post-epidemic era

In the Vision S series, the most widely used (and core) application is still the camera, which can be used as a showcase to global automotive companies to surpass ON Semiconductor in this market segment.

Figure 7: Sony’s advantage in CIS is not yet established in automobiles

Figure 8 Application of Sony's image sensors in the automotive field

Moreover, once this platform is established, Sony can find direct demands from partners, especially OEMs with whom it has less contact, in various businesses and contents. I personally think this is the key point - starting a car company on your own is really a completely unprofitable thing.

Figure 9 Image sensors used in cars. Sony started late

summary:

In my opinion, it is difficult for car startups to emerge in Europe and Japan, except for China and the United States. There are no so-called software giants in these two places, and it is difficult for companies like Dyson and Sony to win in the automotive industry. I think Sony's next step is to analyze the ADAS camera and automotive CIS market, which may be more effective.