Honda has entered into various alliances as it tries to find a place in the fast-changing electric vehicle market, but after experimenting with Sony’s on-board electronics, a joint venture has been formed that will offer Californians the Afeela electric vehicle starting at $89,900 next year.
Image Source: Sony Honda Mobility
For several years in a row, prototypes of electric vehicles jointly developed by Sony and Honda were demonstrated at the CES exhibition in Las Vegas, and last year, in order to attract attention, it demonstrated the function of remote control of the car using a wireless joystick from the Sony PlayStation 5 game console. Since the joint venture Sony Honda Mobility was originally planned to begin production of electric vehicles in 2026; with the onset of 2025, its representatives, as TechSpot notes, confirmed their readiness to begin accepting pre-orders for the electric sedan Afeela, which will begin deliveries in 2026. Currently, only California residents can pre-apply; the $200 deposit can be returned if you decide not to buy the car.
Honda Motor cannot be called a newcomer to the auto business, but the brainchild of a joint venture with Sony does not impress the sophisticated consumer with its technical characteristics, richness of equipment, or affordability. There are two trim levels available, the base Afeela 1 Origin is priced at $89,900 and will go on sale next year, while the more expensive Afeela 1 Signature will be offered from 2027 at a price of $102,900. Tellingly, the base electric car will only be offered in black. while the older version in 2027 will offer a choice of three body color options.
At a presentation at CES 2025, the head of the joint venture, Yasuhide Mizuno, demonstrated the ability to call an empty car to the owner’s location via a voice command on a smartphone. So far, this function, like last year’s control via a wireless joystick, is used only for demonstration purposes, so it is difficult to say how high the likelihood of its support appearing in production machines.
As is known, Sony is responsible for saturating Afeela with on-board electronics, so the total number of sensors and cameras has reached 40, and in addition to one lidar and nine radars, 12 more ultrasonic sensors are provided. An impressive set of cameras, combined with a processor that provides a performance level of 800 TOPS, is capable of implementing a second-level autopilot, at least with the prospect of further improvement. Clients of the joint venture will have access to the autopilot by subscription.
The powertrain of the Afeela electric car does not have outstanding characteristics compared to much cheaper Chinese competitors. At least, the all-wheel drive transmission with two electric motors with a power of 180 kW (245 hp) coexists in this car with a 91 kWh traction battery, the charge of which is enough for 480 km according to the EPA conditional cycle. It is noteworthy that Afeela will initially be equipped with a NACS port for charging at branded Tesla Supercharger stations, which are widely distributed in North America. The decision to release such a car on the US market, taking into account the protective duties on Chinese electric cars, is quite understandable from the point of view of the business logic of Sony Honda Mobility, because in other markets a new product with such a price positioning would be doomed to failure.