Sony and Honda have recently taken an important step ahead in their joint EV adventure by announcing the name of the brand and the debut model of their first electric car. We saw the initial idea of the joint venture at CES 2023, and its first production model will be called Afeela. Delivery in North America is expected to start in the spring of 2026, with pre-orders opening in the first part of 2025 and sales beginning by the end of 2025.
Sony Honda Mobility CEO Yasuhide Mizuno has said that the Afeela would center on three ideas: autonomy, augmentation, and affinity. Key features such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), entertainment, and telematics will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Digital Chassis, which has 800 TOPS of processing capability and is installed in the Afeela car.
There will be a “media bar” on the exterior of the Afeela, according to Sony, which will facilitate interaction with pedestrians and other vehicles. It seems that a screen of some kind is being referred to, although the level of sophistication is unknown. When it comes to autonomy, Afeela hopes to provide Level 3 in certain situations and Level 2+ in the vast majority of cases, including those set in metropolitan areas. The incorporation of a PS5 for entertainment and games has been proposed as a feature for the Honda-Sony vehicle. However, this remains unconfirmed at the moment.
Sony has promised to create a completely new HMI with a groundbreaking user interface and feature set. In terms of entertainment, it has worked with Epic Games, however, the results of that collaboration have not yet been revealed. Despite this, there are hints that subscription services will play a significant role in the program, implying that using certain features may cost money.
Sony plans to use the expanding market for electric cars as a testing ground for its next generation of electronics and media content. Afeela was developed because the company did not want to just lease its technology and software to automakers.
