Four years after announcing plans to set up its own mobility division – and three years after confirming it would partner with Honda to develop a new EV – Sony will reveal a near production-ready version of an all-electric sedan at the Consumer Electronics Show next month. The all-wheel-drive model will put a premium on in-car entertainment technology and be marketed under the brand name Afeela.
The new Afeela brand will get its own stand at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show.
It’s not a great time for EV start-ups. While Tesla may be the world’s most valuable automaker, Fisker, Faraday Future and Canoo are either bankrupt or teetering on the edge of insolvency. Dyson pulled the plug after investing billions in a now-abandoned development program. And Lucid and Rivian face their own serious challenges.
That hasn’t slowed down Sony-Honda Mobility, or SHM, however. The new Afeela brand is set to start taking orders early next year for an all-electric sedan it will show off in near production-ready form at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early next month.
Of course, it helps to have two very deep-pocketed parents. Afeela is the name for a joint venture teaming up consumer electronics giant Sony Group and Japan’s third-largest automaker, Honda Motor Co.
A very different business strategy
Afeela Chief Executive Yasuhide Mizuno showed off an earlier prototype at CES.
How stand out from the flood of EVs already on the market – with dozens more expected to arrive in 2025? Afeela says it’s goal is to “redefine the relationship between people and mobility.” And if that isn’t flowery enough, the start-up goes a step further in a pre-CES news release explaining it is focused on “Autonomy (evolving autonomy), Augmentation (extension of the body, time and space) and Affinity (affinity with people, and coexistence with society).”
If your eyes haven’t crossed and you plan to read on, let’s try to simplify what that means. Not surprisingly, Sony isn’t simply interested in spending billions of dollars to build yet another all-electric vehicle. It’s become conventional wisdom to describe today’s vehicles as “computers on wheels.” Sony wants to build an entertainment center on wheels.
And by making Afeela’s products autonomous it is betting motorists and their passengers will have time and need to take advantage of all that the Sony empire can deliver: movies, streaming TV series, music and games.
Toon time
The real story of Afeela focuses on what technology partners Sony and Honda will load into its interior.
Afeela already revealed some of the things it will build into the EV, including the Zoom videoconferencing system, as well as “Toon Goggles,” a streaming application for children, and more.
The EV will feature a personal assistant powered by the Microsoft Azure OpenAI system. Dubbed the Mobility Personal Assistant, it’s expected to permit “conversation-like interactions.”
Parent Sony-Honda Mobility is working with Epic Games and will use that tech firm’s cutting-edge Unreal Engine – best known for powering the popular Fortnite. Expect that technology not only to enhance whatever games or videos are called up by passengers but to provide augmented reality functions for the driver. Of course, we can expect the Sony PlayStation to be integrated into the EV in some form or another.
There’ll also be a “Media Bar,” a digital display between the headlights, allowing the vehicle to communicate with the rest of the world.
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Oh, yeah, it’s an EV. Here’s what we know
The final version of the Afeela sedan will likely use a variety of sensors for autonomous driving, including LiDAR.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Afeela will first come to market with a sedan, rather than a crossover, considering what is clicking with today’s buyers. We hope to learn about future product plans at CES, including follow-up product lines.
The sedan will offer all-wheel-drive, with one electric motor per axle. Afeela has suggested it will turn out 241 horsepower per motor. That’s not out of line with today’s EVs, but far from benchmark.
The base, rear-wheel-drive Tesla Model 3 comes in at 295 hp and the AWD Performance package bumps that to 510 ponies, enough to hit 0-60 in less than 5 seconds. Some reports suggest Afeela may have a performance package capable of 400 hp per motor.
Range and charging
The decision to stick with a sedan in today’s SUV world has surprised some observers.
The driveline will draw power from a 91.0-kWh lithium-ion battery pack. The numbers we’ve seen seem modest, range coming in somewhere between 250 to 300 miles. Not benchmark, either, but we could be in for a surprise at CES. The drive system will be able to draw as much as 150 kilowatts plugged into a DC fast charger.
The sedan will offer such welcome features as an air suspension. Again, far from benchmark. The new Hyundai Ioniq 9 can draw closer to 300 kW, slashing charge times.
As with virtually all new EVs, Afeela opted for a skateboard-like platform, batteries and much of the driveline mounted below the load floor. The sedan is expected to feature an electronically controlled air suspension.
Pricing and availability
Expect to see at least as big a turnout for the Afeela reveal at CES 2025 as in prior years.
Expect to hear more details at CES but word is out that we should see SHM begin taking orders as early as the second quarter of 2025.
The start-up did note that it “is scheduled to launch its first mass-produced EV model in 2025, with deliveries expected to start in 2026.”
As for pricing, there’s been numerous reports suggesting the Afeela sedan will start at $45,000. But Japan’s Nikkei put the price closer to $65,000. The wide gap could be explained by covering different trim packages, of course, possibly including a base, single-motor variant.
More news coming
We’ll get a first look at the Afeela sedan during the Sony Group’s news conference at CES at 5:00 PM PST on January 6th, marking the opening of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.
But Afeela will be shoehorned in with all the other magical electronic gadgetry that Sony plans to reveal that evening. The automotive start-up has a lot more it plans to discuss during what it describes as a “solo press conference” at 4:30 PM PST on January 7th.
Both events will be staged at the Las Vegas Convention Center. But if you can’t snag a pass for the 2025 CES, no problem. You’ll be able to watch the first event livestream by going to https://www.youtube.com/Sony.
The Afeela event will be streamed at https://www.youtube.com/@shmafeela.
If you want to attend the actual events – and meet the CES criteria — you’ll need to register first at https://www.ces.tech/.
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