Sony Honda Mobility scales back after Honda EV strategy review
The Sony-Honda venture will reassign about 400 employees after shelving the Afeela 1, as Honda rethinks its electric-vehicle strategy.
- Sony Honda Mobility is scaling down its operations and has canceled plans to develop and sell electric vehicles, specifically the Afeela 1 model.
- The decision was a direct result of Honda reviewing its own EV strategy, influenced by a shrinking electric vehicle market in North America.
- The joint venture will effectively suspend operations, and its approximately 400 employees will be reassigned to the parent companies, Sony and Honda.
- Although EV development is stopping, the Sony Honda Mobility corporation will be maintained to explore future uses for the AI and other technologies developed for the Afeela.
Japan's Sony Honda Mobility Inc. said Tuesday (April 21) that it will scale down operations, following its decision to cancel its plans to develop and sell electric vehicles.
The joint venture between Sony Group Corp. and Honda Motor Co. will effectively suspend operations and reassign its roughly 400 employees to the parent companies in principle.
Sony Honda Mobility said the company and its parent firms "concluded that it would be difficult to find ways to bring products and services...to the market in the short to medium term under the existing framework."
Its decision to end development and sales of EVs followed a decision by Honda to review its EV strategy. The parent firms will explore ways to cooperate in the future.
Sony Honda Mobility was established in 2022 to develop high-value-added EVs with enhanced entertainment functions, such as music and movies, and conversational artificial intelligence capabilities. But it called off the development and sales of the Afeela 1 EV as it would be unable to contract production to Honda, which reviewed its EV strategy last month amid the shrinking EV market in North America.
The companies plan to keep Sony Honda Mobility as a corporation and consider how to utilise AI and other technologies developed for the Afeela. They are expected to discuss new ways of collaborating in the field of mobility.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
