Sony Honda Mobility Launches Afeela Brand And Previews New EV Prototype

Say hello to ‘Afeela’ - the new EV-specific brand name for the Sony Honda Mobility (SHM) joint venture. Said brand was announced along with a preview of a prototype EV at the on-going Consumer Electronics Show 2023 (CES 2023) in Las Vegas this week.

Yasuhide Mizuno, CEO of SHM, didn’t reveal much as to why the name ‘Afeela’ was chosen, but did said that the Afeela name was selected as it “expresses ‘feel’, which is at the centre of the mobility experience that SHM aims to create.

“Afeela represents our concept of an interactive relationship where people feel the sensation of interactive mobility and where mobility can detect and understand people and society by utilising sensing and AI technologies,” said Mizuno during the car’s reveal.

The new Afeela prototype EV showcased by SHM is decked out with a variety of cameras and sensors inside and out. According to the firm, there are 45 cameras and sensors in total, all working with an ECU that boasts  800 TOPS of maximum computing power too. Also, Artificial Intelligence or AI, is central in powering and tying up these hardware.

Adding on to that, Afeela will be equipped with Level 3 semi-autonomous driving systems. This implies that the car will be highly automated in certain conditions and will delegate driving to the driver only when necessary.

Best-in-class entertainment including movies, music, and games will be available inside the car thanks to Sony's contribution in this joint venture. Included too are Qualcomm's top Snapdragon chips that will power the car's tech, whereas Epic Games' Unreal Engine will power the graphical interfaces.

Reports also suggest a built-in PS5 feature, which SHM says is a part of entertainment on the go and a more entertainment-driven vehicle concept this prototype is driven by.

“Sony has content, services and entertainment technologies that move people. We are adapting these assets to mobility, and this is our strength against Tesla,” said SHM president and COO Izumi Kawanishi, adding that it’s possible to integrate the PlayStation into cars.

However, the model characteristics remain secret, which is understandable given how little Sony Honda Mobility revealed about it. Having said that, the company acknowledged the prototype features all-wheel drive (AWD), thus implying a dual-motor setup.

The car's range is also unknown, but one of the interior photographs displayed a range readout of 234 miles (377 KM) with a remaining state-of-charge (SoC) between 75 to 80%. We'll probably have to wait a while longer to find out this EV’s actual claimed range.

What we can confirm at this point too is that pre-orders will open in the first half of 2025 starting with North America, with actual sales expected to commence before the year ends. First deliveries, on the other hand, started in North America around spring of 2026 followed by Japan in the second half of the same year.