Sony Vision-S (or maybe Sony ‘AutoMan’?)- an autonomous electric car to showcase Sony tech

The Sony Vision-S is a surprise reveal at CES, an autonomous electric car built by Sony to showcase its future car technology.

It seems that the arrival of the electric car means just about any company – from startup to established player – can come up with their own electric car. And that’s exactly what Sony has done.

It seems unlikely the Sony Vision-S is anything more than a showcase for Sony’s technology – rather than a planned electric car – but it does seem to have been built with the help of some big names – like Bosch and Magna Steyr – so who knows?

The Vision-S is a big luxury four-door with long roofline, and it’s underpinned by an electric platform with enough oomph to get to 62mph in 4.8 seconds, with Brembo brakes to haul it back in.

But the whole point of the Vision-S is the Sony technology on show, which includes the Sony safety Cocoon with 33 sensors of various types to identify people and objects inside and out, including CMOS image sensors and Solid-State LiDAR.

Inside there are Time-of-Flight (ToF) sensors to detect and recognise occupants and tailor settings and infotainment to suit, as well as AI, Cloud Tech and communications via a big panoramic touchscreen (below) to deliver an intuitive interface.

It seems more likely the car itself will be heading to Gran Turismo as the Sony Automan than in to production as a luxury Sony EV.