CES 2023: Sony & Honda Reveal 'Afeela' EV Brand - Unveil Prototype

Sony Honda Mobility, the EV JV between Japanese brands Honda and Sony has revealed that its EV marque will be known as Afeela. The firm also revealed a prototype sedan under the Afeela brand at CES 2023.

The EV joint venture between the two Japanese industrial icons was announced last year and the event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas gave us our first look at the new Afeela brand and what it will bring to the table in the near future.

Sony Honda Mobility's Afeela brand represents 'Feel' which is the centre of the mobility experience claims the Japanese brand. The firm claims that Afeela expresses an interactive relationship where people 'Feel' mobility as an intelligent entity, that in turn, feels people and the societies that they are part of using sensing and network IT tech.

Afeela at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show unveiled a prototype electric sedan that represents the future of the brand which is aiming to bring an EV into the market by 2026.

The Afeela Prototype electric sedan features a fastback design with a roof that slopes into the boot along with cameras instead of regular ORVMs and doors with no visible handles. The Afeela 'Prototype' also features a display that sits between the headlights that can show off details like the weather as well as interact with both people and other vehicles on the road.

The Afeela rides on 21-inch alloy wheels that look to be designed to help the EV cut through the air as smoothly as possible. The wheels are shod with 245/40R21 (front) and 275/35R21 (rear) tyres. At the rear, the Afeela Prototype features a full-length lightbar-style taillight with the brand name visible in the centre.

The Afeela Prototype is quite a large sedan measuring 4,895mm long, 1,900mm wide and 1,460mm tall. The wheelbase of the EV is 3,000mm long. Sony Honda Mobility has also fitted the Afeela Prototype with double wishbone suspension at the front with the rear sporting a multi-link setup.

Standout features on the Afeela prototype include a panoramic glass roof that cocoons the passengers sitting inside it. Other highlights include a yoke-style steering wheel which features both touchpads and buttons behind which sits a large widescreen panel that hosts both the driver's display and the infotainment screen. The Afeela Prototype also sports displays behind the front seats to keep those at the back entertained.

The Afeela also makes use of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Digital Chassis which will help the vehicle process up to 800 trillion operations per second, more than enough to deal with all the data transmitted by the 45 cameras and sensors fitted to the car.

Thoughts About Afeela

Sony Honda Mobility's new Affela brand looks to be yet another entrant into the very hot EV market. However, by leveraging Honda and Sony's brilliance into a single brand, this amalgamation of the two Japanese manufacturers looks set to blow our socks off when it formally hits the streets in 2026.