Sony and Honda Are Preparing to Release the Afeela Electric Vehicle with a Price of $89,900 (12 photos)

Honda has entered into various alliances in its attempts to find a place in the rapidly changing electric vehicle market, but after experimenting with Sony's onboard electronics, a joint venture was created that will offer the Afeela electric car to California residents next year, starting at $89,900.





Founded in 2022, the Sony Honda Mobility joint venture uses the annual CES in Las Vegas in January to make announcements and premieres. Two years ago, the partners presented a concept car under the joint brand Afeela, a year ago a pre-production electric car was shown, and here is another milestone: the production-ready liftback Afeela 1 debuted in Las Vegas.

Compared to last year's show car, the production electric car has hardly changed. The five-door has rounded streamlined shapes, a matrix panel between the headlights (it can display various messages and animations), a retractable spoiler at the stern and frameless doors with a standard electric drive. There are no door handles, there are only buttons on the roof pillars, but you can activate automatic opening of the driver's door: the sensors will be guided by the signal from the key or smartphone in the driver's pocket.

The Afeela 1 electric car is quite large: length - 4915 mm, width - 1900 mm, height - 1460 mm. The wheelbase is 3000, and the declared ground clearance is 137 mm. The interior is designed for five passengers, the trunk volume is 765 liters according to the American EPA method. Interestingly, the car has traditional rear-view mirrors, although they are supplemented with side cameras and corresponding screens in the cabin. It is stated that recycled materials will be widely used in production: not only for interior trim, but also for the body and suspension parts.

The developers position the Afeela 1 electric car as far as possible from driver ambitions. They say that driving this car should reduce stress levels, and the interior is designed for content consumption. Therefore, large screens are installed here, there is an active noise reduction system, instead of the usual steering wheel there is a steering wheel, and the basic equipment includes an autopilot of "level 2+". It has a rooftop lidar, 18 cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and 9 radars, and a CPU performance of 800 TOPs (trillion operations per second).











The screens can display information about other cars, pedestrians, road signs, weather and other driving conditions. The digital model of the environment is rendered by the Unreal Engine 5.3 game engine, and the on-board system is generally open to third-party applications, games and services. This was made possible thanks to close cooperation with the gaming giant Epic Games. And Microsoft provided the Azure OpenAI service (ChatGPT is integrated into it), on the basis of which an on-board electronic assistant with artificial intelligence was created: the company calls it a personal agent.



Honda is responsible for developing the electric part of the car. Apparently, the Afeela 1 is built on the same platform as the future electric cars of the Honda 0 family, although this has not been officially confirmed. The liftback has a double wishbone suspension in the front, a multi-link in the rear and air springs all around: the chassis is tuned for the most comfortable ride.









Only one all-wheel drive modification is offered: two motors (front and rear) produce 245 hp, the total power is 490 hp. A full charge of the lithium-ion traction battery with a capacity of 91 kW h should be enough for 483 km according to the EPA cycle. The DC charger has a current average output of 150 kW, but the Afeela 1 will have a NACS charging port, meaning it will have access to the Tesla Supercharger network.



Two fixed trim levels have been announced. The base Origin is 19-inch wheels and only black exterior and interior colors. This liftback will cost $89,900, but it will only hit the market in 2027. The Signature version for $102,900 is promised by mid-2026. It has 21-inch wheels, a screen instead of a rear-view mirror, additional displays in the second row, as well as the ability to choose the color of the exterior (three options) and interior (two options). The price includes a three-year subscription to a number of functions, including autopilot, but the developers have not yet specified how much you will have to pay to renew this subscription.

So far, you can only place an order for the Afeela 1 electric car in California. The first two branded showrooms will be opened there in the second half of this year, and one of them will be located in Fremont, where Tesla's main plant is located. However, the partners will produce Afeela liftbacks in Ohio, at the same Honda plant where the production of Honda 0 electric vehicles is being prepared. The main market will be the United States, but deliveries to Japan are also planned.