Sony has been tapping into the EV market since wowing CES 2020 with its beautifully put together Vision-S concept. Two years later, it officially launched its automotive business, and a few months later partnered with Honda to cement things by creating Sony Honda Mobility Inc. by 2022. Now, Sony Honda is launching the Afeela brand. , shows a new prototype that adds some major eye candy to the new company’s launch Dry Nuts and Bolts. Sporty and fully streamlined, the Afeela sedan looks even smarter and more tech than the eye-popping Vision-S and has a more tangible future.
It’s as stifling as “Sony Honda Mobility Inc.”. (SHM) “Afira” is somehow useless. It’s a little too cute and I have a hard time reading it without hearing “I feel ya.” Its name is actually based on the word “feel”, and we’ll leave it up to each reader to decide if Sony-Honda’s description brings all the right feels.Humans and society with sensing and network IT technology
So you have it.
More interestingly for the average car guy or gal, the Afeela brand’s debut comes with an early preview of the first product: Hyundai’s new Ioniq 6 ‘streamliner’ looks less droopy and more appealing. Like the latter, the Afira sedan’s dramatically sloping roofline drops below the belt line, but this one with a wraparound taillight design It ends with a stronger, more defined rear end. The overall design is even more minimalistic, with subtle volumes instead of hard-drawn character lines.
Sony Honda Mobility
Sony Honda Mobility has fleshed out the Afeela sedan well beyond its sizable concept shell, calling it a prototype on which production vehicles will be based. The 193-inch (490-cm) five-seater uses a suite of 45 cameras and sensors, along with the Qualcomm Snapdragon Digital Chassis computing platform, to provide planned Level 3 autonomy in selected driving scenarios and provide level “2+” autonomy in certain scenarios. In a wider range of situations, including city riding. The sedan also uses what SHM calls a “media bar” to communicate with other road users via an expansive lighting array.
The tech-infused design continues inside the doors, with a full-width digital dashboard featuring separate driver and passenger displays and a digital side-view camera screen. The larger interior architecture curves along those end-cap camera screens, creating an enveloping “soft cocoon” feel.
Sony Honda Mobility
SHM is positioning Afeela’s interior as a space for entertainment and interactivity in addition to basic transportation, and will combine several AR and VR features. To this end, Epic Games’ collaboration with Unreal Engine has begun.
While the Afira sedan won’t debut anytime soon, Sony Honda aims to introduce a production model in 2025, with North American deliveries beginning in the spring of 2026.
Take a full tour of the prototype in the short video below.
Afira | Product Movie
Source: Sony Honda Mobility
