Sony VISION-S Electric Car Tested On Public Roads In Europe

It has been a year since Sony first revealed it also had its eyes on the road, surprising everyone at CES 2020 with its own concept electric vehicle. Of course, 2020 was quite a disaster so it isn't out of the ordinary that we didn't hear much about this Sony EV afterward, save for a brief sighting in August. At this year's purely virtual CES 2021, Sony reveals that it hasn't been sitting on the VISION-S, figuratively speaking of course, and has, in fact, even taken it for a test run on public roads last month.

The Sony VISION-S is interesting more for who's making it than what it is. After all, it was just a concept until a prototype was made last year but it seems that Sony is quite invested in seeing it become an actual product. The company, however, is better known for its consumer electronics, cameras, and the technologies that power those, which is basically what this car is.

Sony's spiel last year involved showcasing its technologies that could then be used by automobile manufacturers for their cars. The company does specialize in imaging, sensors, and the computing technologies needed to drive those and process data coming from them. Those, however, make only one part of a car and it remained to be seen if they could actually be used in actual vehicles.

Perhaps to dispel those doubts, Sony showed off a brief clip at CES 2021 that revealed a VISION-S prototype being driven on public roads in Austria. It doesn't go into much detail, of course, other than giving sneak peeks of the data gathered by the cars' sensors and how they're presented to the driver.

Sony, unfortunately, doesn't say much else about the VISION-S EV other than it has reached this stage of testing for technical evaluation. Interestingly, Sony's video may have been recorded by its new Airpeak drone, carrying a full-frame mirrorless Alpha camera, which also makes a brief appearance there.