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The PlayStation of Cars?
Every year at CES in Las Vegas, Sony Honda Mobility has updated its Afeela sedan for the past couple of years. This year at the show, it’s finally a production model with a price.
Who is this car for? No, really, because I have no idea.
The Afeela is a flagship sedan in a world of SUVs. One could argue that Lucid had to launch with a sedan, but launching with a sedan in a world that doesn’t want them makes zero sense.
Additionally, the Afeela 1 sedan in Origin trim only has an EPA-estimated range of 300 miles. While that’s not the worst thing in the world, it’s significantly less range than the Tesla Model S and even the inefficient Dodge Charger Daytona.
The best, or worst, part is the car starts at $89,900 for the Origin trim and a whopping $102,900 for the Signature trim! The world doesn’t need more super-expensive EVs. It doesn’t. I promise you it doesn’t.
The Afeela’s proprietary ADAS system has 40 sensors, including lidar, and is powered by an 800 TOPS processor with “AI technology.” It’s also a subscription that comes with 3 years complimentary when you purchase the car. It’s unclear what ADAS functions if you aren’t paying the subscription.
Sony Honda Mobility
But hey, it uses Unreal Engine to display graphics so there’s that. Because that’s so great in the Hummer EV with its laggy displays? But to be fair to Unreal Engine, the Hummer appears to not have enough graphics processing power to render well. But do we need a real-time rendering of the dash in a car?
Plus, it only has 3 exterior colors. THREE. It’s a color palette the only the Germans could dream of.
On the flipside it seems to be a reasonable attractive, unobtrusive looking large sedan that has a bit of Lucid inspiration going on for it. While I’m not at CES this year, I did see one of the prototypes last year and it a decent-enough looking thing. There was some interesting use of display technology on the outside of the vehicle, which probably won’t be on the U.S. version.
Inside, there’s a dash-spanning screen that is a bit like what’s in the Honda e (a car that’s discontinued). The interior emphasizes tech first and has a yoke instead of a wheel for reasons. If the yoke experience is like that in the Lexus RZ then I’m reasonably ok with it, but if it’s like the in the Model S and doesn’t vary the steering ratio as you turn, then it’s a terrible idea.
The key selling point for Afeela is the technology and processing power. That is something Sony should be able to do pretty well, but I’m not yet convinced that’s something that a customer wants.
If all the tech works well, then it might be an interesting product. But not carrying a Honda badge means people will have to be ok with buying a Sony car. I’m not sure that’s necessary.
It’ll be on sale for people in California only (for U.S. sales) sometime this mid-2026 (for Signature trim) and mid-2027 (for Origin trim) and will be built by Honda in Marysville. You can reserve one for $200 if you live in California today and that deposit is refundable.
The Afeela offices are at Sony Pictures Studios, and I’m sure going to work each day with movie stars and the glitz and glamour of Hollywood is an exciting thing. But based on the information we currently have about the car, I’m not sure the Afeela will be a box office smash.
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The Detroit Auto Show
The Detroit Auto Show is this week. The same week as CES. Why? Because the organizers of the show don’t want any news coverage of their event.
Back in the day the North American International Auto Show was a pretty big deal. New cars that actually went into production were announced there. Debuts came crashing through the glass at the convention center and cowboys rode horses downtown. But it happened in the winter and journalists don’t like flying places where its cold.
So the organizers decided that moving it to summer would be an excellent idea. We special snowflake journalists would be happier, right? Well, nobody actually went to the public days because Pure Michigan in the summer is doing things that don’t involve going to a convention center downtown.
(Yes, this is my opinion of what happened and not what the official record states.)
Add in some COVID lockdowns and you have a recipe for failure for a show that’s supposed to get consumers to show up.
NAIAS always wanted to be the first auto event of the year. I once did the double of going immediately from Las Vegas to Detroit to cover both CES and NAIAS. It sucked. As tech-focused automakers opted to debut in Vegas and not Detroit, I could see how the organizers were butthurt.
The summer show that I went to, which was the last show I went to in Detroit, the organizers didn’t push back in the slightest when the President of the United States wanted to come in the middle of one of the only press conferences scheduled. That meant people were confined to either the show floor or the press room, and those confined in the press room couldn’t even use the restroom near the press room and had to either hike it to the former Joe Louis arena or urinate in the Detroit River.
That’s to say it wasn’t a success.
If you want the show to be attended by people, you have to have it in the winter. Moving it back to January was a smart decision, but moving it to the same week as CES was not. Not that the Detroit show is going to be anything to write home about, the organizers have even less of a chance of making news if they are competing with another show at the same time.
Shows aren’t about making news insofar as news conferences can draw people in on public days to see what’s new. But the shows aren’t about us, the journalists. But placating us, the journalists is how the Detroit show got into this mess and of the big four auto shows was actually the first one to objectively fail.
Maybe I’m wrong and this year will be amazing, but I’m not optimistic.
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