Honda Dealers May End Up Servicing Car From Venture With Sony After All

The Honda-Sony collaboration would have cut out Honda dealers, until now.

As announced a few weeks ago, Honda and Sony intend to collaborate on a EV project. The specifics weren’t clear, but we do know that the brands intend to establish manufacturing together. The collaborative effort when initially announced, wouldn’t have anything to do with Honda dealers, which wouldn’t service or sell the vehicles. Seemingly at the behest of US Honda dealers, the brand is walking those claims back, CFO Kohei Takeuchi did admit that Honda dealers would possibly be a good idea to service the fruits of the Sony-Honda tie-up.

Whatever the case, Takeuchi is clear – the partnership between the two brands is “something unconventional, not Sony, not Honda, but something new,” he said, on a call discussing Honda’s financial performance. The sales, service, branding, and product line is still in the air as the brand hammers out details. Takeuchi also elaborated that the U.S. is becoming an increasingly weak point for the brand, as supply chain issues have caused the brand to struggle to manufacture and deliver cars to customers.

We still don’t know what the results of the Sony-Honda tie-up will look like. Takeuchi’s language could seem to angle more toward a direct-to-consumer sales model, similar to Tesla. The brands have explained that the results of the partnership would be a higher-end, lower-volume vehicle, which sounds like it would go against cars from Polestar or Tesla; two brands that do direct-to-consumer sales.

Whatever the case, the Honda-Sony car should be on the roads by 2026.

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