We'll See An Updated Sony-Honda Afeela Prototype At CES

The screen-filled electric sedan is still on track to start deliveries in 2026. Is this how Japan Inc. can keep up with China's EVs?

• The electric vehicle joint venture between Sony and Honda, dubbed Afeela, is still on track to launch in 2025 ahead of 2026 deliveries.
• It's a software-driven electric sedan, built by Honda in Ohio and powered by a library of Sony video games, movies and other entertainment content.
• The final specs are unknown, but we'll see more at CES 2025 in January.

Honda may be late to the game with electric vehicles, but it's got aggressive plans to catch up fast that include a huge production hub in Ohio and lots of new technologies developed in-house. But the wild card in that plan is its unexpected tie-up with Japanese consumer electronics and entertainment giant Sony, which will yield a new electric brand called Afeela.

Does the name sound a bit silly? Sure, but the end product aims not to be. Afeela seems to be running a similar playbook as the Chinese EVs that currently have the rest of the industry spooked: lots of screens, lots of software integration and advanced features like hands-off automated driving assistance. The Afeela sedan prototype was unveiled at CES in 2023 and it showed off some AI-driven technology at this year's event.

Now, Sony Honda Mobility officials tell InsideEVs that we will see an updated version of the sedan prototype in less than two months from now, at CES 2025. At a tour of the prototype in New York today, Motorsport Network's Automotive Social Media Manager Maddox Kay learned that an evolved variant of the car will indeed debut at the tech trade show. Officials also confirmed that the prototype on display would be a new version of this sedan, not necessarily the SUV and smaller EV that Afeela has alluded to—though who knows what else the company has in store.

That's all we know for now. But Afeela has previously told us a little bit about what it aims to do with the car when it goes into production. It's expected to be powered by a reasonably large 91 kWh lithium-ion battery with dual-motor all-wheel-drive good for at least 400 horsepower.

Afeela has never stated a targeted electric range, but the brand has mentioned 150 kW DC fast charging—midpack at best by what we'll expect of cars in 2026, so perhaps that will see an upgrade at some point. It's also confirmed to use a Tesla-style North American Charging Standard plug from the factory and have access to the Tesla Supercharger network natively.

Arguably the real party will be inside the Afeela. The car is loaded with screens, including a panoramic that spans the dashboard and two facing the rear passengers. It has built-in entertainment content from the vast Sony library, with Qualcomm chips powering in-car movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home, PlayStation 5 remote play (including a gaming controller that's also been used to drive the prototype) and a software ecosystem designed for "creators." Think of it as a PlayStation on wheels, or Sony's take on what the Apple Car might have been if it had ended up with a steering wheel. Or existed at all, rather.

More crucially, it seems to me like the Afeela brand, experience and heavy emphasis on software and in-car entertainment are Japan's answer to the kinds of cutting-edge EVs we see coming out of China lately. Those are sleek, high-range EVs—often sedans, too—that go heavy on touchscreens instead of buttons and are packed with streaming features and even video games to enjoy while parked or charging. The same is true for the planned hands-free automated driving features. While the Japanese automakers have been late to the EV game, they're spooked by the rise of China lately, and the rest of Japan Inc.—say, Sony or Panasonic, for example—are equally scared about losing out on the future. So while it's a big leap to say that Afeela could take down rising titans like Xiaomi or BYD, a joint venture that combines Sony's software and entertainment dominance with Honda's carmaking know-how is just one example of where the industry is headed next.

But will it actually go into production? I'm slightly less convinced of that. While making the Afeela EV at Honda's new factory certainly makes sense, launching an entirely new and unproven brand could be a different proposition in 2026, especially if we see changes to things like EV tax credits under the new presidential administration. And there's certainly the question of whether American buyers will want a kind of Chinese-style software-defined vehicle when that market feels so far ahead of our own. No prices have been announced for the Afeela EV yet, but it's been expected to start around $50,000. It may make more sense for Sony to integrate these technologies into existing brands and EV's, including the ones Honda is cooking up.

For now, at least, the joint venture says it's on track to actually sell some cars, with production slated to begin late next year. Hopefully, we'll learn more at CES in January.

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