Since its full reveal last year, the Afeela has gained certain features that make it more like a car, like large side mirrors, wireless phone charging, and some more real automobile specifications. The 91kWh lithium-ion battery pack, two 180kW motors (around 483 horsepower), and up to 150kW fast DC charging are features of the all-wheel drive prototype.
However, Sony Honda wasn’t focused on the vehicle aspect when we took a first look at the Afeela’s cabin at CES, as you can see in our embedded photos and video. Instead, Sony Honda wanted us to know that, in spite of its small (but extensive) strip of screen, its vehicle is a booming movie theater and entertainment cockpit, and that, by pressing a button on its dedicated smartphone app, you can turn your front bumper into a rolling billboard for Sony films and video games.
We were only there to feel what it was like to be in an Afeela, so we could only open the doors and touch the steering wheel for a short while. (I like to think of that sensation as “cushy neon.”)
Although the company states that the car will go on sale in 2025 and that deliveries will start in 2026, it is still adding more concept-like features. For example, it has partnered with Microsoft to use Azure to create an AI “conversational personal agent” and with Polyphony Digital, the developer of Gran Turismo, to “develop vehicles that fuse the virtual and the real.”
Less impressively, we learned that the ability to play PlayStation games on that strip of screen is now limited to a PlayStation Remote Play connection to your PS5 at home — a PlayStation Portal on wheels. The driver’s seat rumbled considerably while viewing a Gran Turismo movie teaser.
For the time being, however. One of the many things that is still up in the air, according to Sony Honda Mobility president and COO Izumi Kawanishi, is whether or not there will actually be a PlayStation in the vehicle. Although the automobile will be manufactured at a Honda facility and benefit from Honda’s experience, the speed and range of the vehicle, as well as its fundamental driving features, have not yet been determined. When I ask him what keeps him up at night, Kawanishi explains that it’s the AI because important features like the personal assistant and Level 3 self-driving aren’t available because the AI isn’t finished.
It seems from the start that Sony really wanted this car to feel different from its competitors. Perhaps it does, but not to the extent that Sony Honda is hoping. Longstanding Sony executive Kawanishi says his objective is to “contribute to the evolution of the future of mobility.” He has worked on the PS3, PSP, Sony mobile phones, and the fourth-generation Aibo. He responds that he thinks autonomous driving and personal assistants will define the future of transportation and that this automobile must be clever when I question how Afeela would accomplish that. It’s not at the moment.
A concept-like, high-tech automobile would definitely appeal to me more than one whose edges have been smoothed over to appeal to the people. I believe this is part of the reason Tesla has been so successful with its software-updatable cars, which have features that some find controversial or excessive. We still don’t have enough compelling reasons to desire an Afeela, though, from Sony Honda.
Hopefully, the next time we get in the cockpit, it won’t be a hands-off affair with a Sony Honda representative at the wheel; instead, it will be us operating a vehicle that appeals to both gearheads and nerds.
