This is your Data Sheet for Friday, January 10, 2020.
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Sony won CES’s publicity contest this year: The Japanese tech giant surprised everyone by debuting an electric car called the Vision-S prototype.
In person, the all-grey sedan was sharp-looking as all hell, much more appealing than Tesla’s more plain Series 3 or BMW’s sharp-angled i3. It also featured killer specs, such as personalized cabin climates, four kinds of safety and driving sensors, and a zero-to-60 time of under 5 seconds. I didn’t get to drive the prototype around, but I sure wanted to.
Tech publications were falling all over themselves to hype the car, award the car, and generally give the car attention. As far as judging CES as a publicity race, Sony easily sprinted past Samsung, Dell, LG, and the thousands of other contenders.
Buried in those glowing reviews, however, was one odd fact: Sony has no plans, none at all, to build the car, get into the car business, or generally do anything with the Vision-S prototype other than grab press attention. There’s never going to be a sticker price or a launch date or anything else. That’s why the car was the most genius bit of PR at CES: It got everyone talking about Sony’s sensors and Sony’s screens and Sony’s entertainment library and how these and other Sony offerings would fit so well into the automotive future.
There was another winner of the Vision-S spectacle, one that was much less remarked upon. And that was Magna Steyr, the Austrian unit of auto-parts conglomerate Magna International. Magna Steyr is the company that actually built the prototype car. The longtime behind-the-scenes player may not be known to many consumers, but has manufactured, and even helped design, some popular luxury cars such as Mercedes’s E-class sedan and BMW’s X-3 small SUV.
While the public and press focused on Sony, another, much smaller audience may have been focused on Magna Steyr’s role. And that’s companies like Apple and Google that are developing self-driving car tech but don’t have any expertise in car manufacturing. If the Vision-S was Magna Steyr’s way to lure companies that want to get into the car business, it may be fielding more than a few calls next week.
Aaron Pressman
Twitter: @ampressman
Email: aaron.pressman@fortune.com
