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Remember the Sony Vision-S Concept? The CES standout will be road-tested

Sony's fully functional concept car is under development, not just its tech

Apparently the Sony Vision-S Concept car’s story isn’t over yet. Sony made a big splash at CES in January this year with its fully operational electric car, but the company made it clear that it had no intentions of turning this concept into a production vehicle. Since then, we haven’t heard a peep out of Sony about the car.

That changes today, as Sony just announced the car’s return to Tokyo, via a pretty YouTube video. Two sentences of additional information were provided: “Vision-S Prototype has arrived in Tokyo for advancing our sensing and audio technologies. The prototype vehicle is also currently under development for public road testing this fiscal year.”

The first part makes some sense. Sony said that the whole reason for building this concept was to show off its technology to automotive manufacturers. Now that Sony has its own vehicle to test new tech with, the company should take advantage. It’s the second sentence that perked our ears up. In addition to testing the technologies within the vehicle, Sony appears to be continuing development of the vehicle itself.

Sony Vision-S Concept
Sony Vision-S Concept
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As a quick refresher, the Vision-S is a dual-motor EV (one motor in front and one in back) that can hit 60 mph in 4.8 seconds. It also has an independent double-wishbone suspension at all four corners. The car is serious for a concept in that it functions and does everything it needs for driving on public roads. Sony’s intentions could be far less than we’re reading into this, but public road testing is a significant step for any prototype vehicle. The company could just be attempting to prove its sensors, cameras and other bits in real-world situations, but it’s created one serious machine to do that in.

We’ll be keeping an eye on Sony for the foreseeable future to see what else it gets up to with the Vision-S. In the meantime, have a watch of the above beauty roll Sony shot to highlight the Vision-S in its new Tokyo home.

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