Sony Afeela may be just what this dormant self-driving EV industry needs. There I said it, and it’s a change of heart that comes from finally joining the prototype collaboration between Sony and Honda. Sony Afeela, the EV with the craziest name, might offer everything you want, including AI, in a next-level self-driving electric car.
It’s been a long road for Sony Honda Mobility’s self-driving Afeela EV prototype. We first heard of it years ago, when it was still called Sony Vision S. However, the rebrand introduced two years ago at CES 2023 caused some headaches.
Vision S was cool. Afeela is a softball for puns. Part of the problem is that Sony largely kept the media at bay. That changed this week when Sony began inviting the press to a Classic Car Club hanger on the west side of Manhattan.
Afeela is a joint project between Sony and Honda, and company representatives emphasize that it is a 50-50 venture. Honda didn’t just build an electric car and ask Sony for permission to develop the brand. Instead, both companies’ fingerprints are all over the car.
In retrospect, the Classic Car Club may not have been the best place to showcase Afeela’s relatively understated design. Outside the building was a collection of expensive, flashy sports and classic cars. The gray Afeela sat lonely in the hollow hanger, looking much the same as it did when I saw it at CES last year and the year before. Sony did tell me that other color options will be available when the EV goes up for pre-order next year and ships in 2026.
Step inside
However, Sony’s intention this time wasn’t just to antiseptically showcase Afeela’s abilities. I was almost immediately invited to take a seat in the largely white interior.
But first I had to figure out if I could open one of the sedan’s four doors. While most EVs have recessed handles, the Afeela has none. I quickly got to see how the car could communicate with the companion app on your phone and swing the door open as you approached the car. If app controls aren’t your thing, there are small buttons hidden near each window. One push of the button and the door swung open automatically. There is another button in the door that allowed me to open and close the car door.
As I settled into the comfortable bucket seat, the seat moved forward and the steering wheel dropped toward my lap. My eyes were immediately drawn to the dashboard’s almost entirely touchscreen. We swiped on it to see different content options. It supports customization, gaming (somewhat incongruously, there was a PlayStation controller just under the dash, but we never got it to work with the car) and even movies. You can slide the content to or from the driver. There will be a method to ensure that a movie playing at the far right of the screen doesn’t distract the driver, although Sony can’t describe what technology makes this possible.
My favorite use of this screen was as a giant navigation map. We pinched and zoomed in on it and then swiped up to convert it into a 360-degree 3D view.
The dashboard directly in front of me, which is also customizable, shows an image of the car and the Fortnite logo above it. I never got to drive the EV, and Sony Honda Mobility has been quiet about certain key specs, like range. However, this screen provided a clue.
I saw the 0 MPH reading and a “Range” reading on the far left. The bar turned out to be 84% full and promised 234 miles to go. That could mean that Afeela will be in the range of 400 or even 430 km/h, which would more or less correspond to the basic range of a Tesla Model 3 with a rear-wheel motor.
Since this was a prototype, there were a lot of things I couldn’t experience (like a test drive) or explore, like the trunk and frunk. Even the 360 spatial audio sound system was incomplete, but they were willing to let me listen. Music was played. but also sonic soundscapes that filled the ears and the cabin. The EV will include noise canceling features that should ensure that even if we play the music, people outside the car may not be able to hear it.
Afeela uses a combination of cameras (they wouldn’t tell me how many) and Lidar sensors for autonomy and to deliver information about the environment, other cars and pedestrians to the driver. In addition to a standard side view and rearview mirror, a pair of screens can show you a more complete view from each side of the car (Sony never enabled these in my demo). The rear view mirror can switch between a standard mirror and a reversing camera.
I also slipped into the spacious back seat and was confronted with what appeared to be a 12-inch touchscreen (there was one on the back of each front seat). They showed maps, but could be used to display movies, play games, access music and more.
The EV is big on themes, and depending on which ones you choose (or even create), the ambient lighting embedded in the car will be customized, as will the sounds. I like the Fortnite blue shade we ended up with.
A mobile computer
Afeela is a smart car. While Sony Honda Mobility won’t give any details about the manufacturer, they claim that the EV has a powerful system on a chip (SoC) capable of 800 ToPs (trillions of operations per second) and supports built-in machine learning AI that, in combination with all cameras and sensors should achieve Sony Honda Mobility’s goal of Level 3 and Level 2+ autonomy.
This means that the car can drive itself, but the driver still needs to maintain contact with the steering wheel as a backup. Company representatives told me the system is well equipped to handle night driving and bad weather. The car also receives regular wireless system updates.
Afeela uses these smart features to get to know you and make adjustments, such as switching up the morning routine if she knows – through access to your calendar – that you have a meeting this morning and offering faster routes to ensure you get there on time comes.
Even though Sony promises Honda Mobility pre-orders next year and delivery in 2026, it has nothing to say about the price yet. While the car and its tech-packed interior are exciting and the exterior pleasantly attractive, the Afeela leaves a big question mark in the EV space.
No one outside the company knows how it will drive, exactly how far it can go, what its 0-60mph capabilities are, or how all those in-cabin capabilities will work for the driver and passengers in the real world.
What we do know is what Afeela means. Here’s how a Sony Honda Mobility representative described it to me:
Central to the mobility experience is creating a feeling. Take that idea of creating a feeling, a combination of magnification, economy and affinity, and you get A Feel A, and that’s where Afeela comes from.”
Okay, we’ll take his word for it.