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The head of the Sony-Honda joint venture has said Japanese car makers are “very scared” of the rapid development of Chinese electric cars and warned that they risk becoming “followers” if they fail to innovate more quickly.
Yasuhide Mizuno said Japanese companies needed to change their conservative corporate culture and urged a manufacturing boom to catch up with Chinese rivals that in a few years had become the world’s top auto exporter.
“Competitors from China are very strong and we are very concerned about the speed of their adoption and implementation,” Sony Honda Mobility CEO Mizuno said at the company’s Tokyo headquarters.
“Japanese automakers get a bit nervous or sensitive before launching a new car. This attitude needs to change, otherwise China will be first and we will always be a follower,” added Mizuno, who headed Honda’s China business until 2020.
Honda is lagging behind rivals in the global electrification race despite an ambitious goal of phasing out gasoline-powered cars by 2040. It agreed in March to partner with Nissan to develop electric vehicles to help it survive competition from techier, cheaper models from China.
The 50-50 joint venture between Honda and Sony was formed in 2022 to combine Honda’s auto-manufacturing strength with Sony’s software and entertainment expertise. The company plans to start delivering electric vehicles in North America by 2026.
Mizuno said Chinese rivals were moving faster than expected. Supported by big government subsidies and the recruitment of top engineers from Japan, Europe and the United States, he estimated that China has cut the development time for an electric vehicle (from concept to production) to about 18 months, less than half the time it takes to develop a car in Japan, he added.
“Since Chinese-made electric vehicles cannot be imported into the U.S., consumers have limited choices,” Mizuno said. “But rather than be happy that Chinese cars cannot be imported, we feel we should launch vehicles that can compete directly with Chinese rivals.”
The Sony-Honda luxury car, the Afila, is intended to showcase how software can be incorporated into the manufacturing process and is targeted at what Mizuno calls “affluent nerds” and will not be mass-produced.
Mizuno added that Japanese automakers should not let their guard down after the United States quadrupled tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles to 100%, effectively shutting groups such as BYD and NIO out of the market.
Mizuno said he expects electric vehicle sales to become mainstream in the U.S., Chinese and European auto markets by 2035, despite a recent slowdown in the rapid growth of electric vehicles.
Sony is expected to benefit from the joint venture by being closer to the auto manufacturing process and expanding sales of its image sensors to the sector, but many analysts question what Honda will gain from the partnership.
Mizuno argued that the joint venture would be equally valuable to Honda, as it would allow it to gain software development expertise from Sony engineers.
“Software could become a new weapon in the automotive development process,” he said.
