That’s it, the joint venture between Sony and Honda has just launched sales of its electric car, the Afeela 1 during CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The first deliveries are expected for 2026. But customers should be few in number.
Sony’s electric car in collaboration with Honda has been eagerly awaited for years. At each CES, Sony unveiled new features, moving from concept to prototype. This time it’s the right one, Sony unveils the production version of the Afeela, called Afeela 1.
Only in California initially
As we can read in the press release, the Afeela 1 will be produced in Ohio in the United States, and only available in California at first. The first sales will be made during 2025, with deliveries scheduled for mid-2026. But be careful, because only the Signature finish will be available on that date, for $102,900.
Are you in less of a hurry? The Origin finish, available from $89,900, will arrive later, in 2027. It is already possible to reserve the car in exchange for a deposit of $200. Enough to take a look at the configurator, with the three exterior colors and two interior colors.
Driving aids, by subscription
We already knew it with our discovery of the prototype: Sony is betting big with driving aids. A subscription offered for three years allows you to benefit from level 2 semi-autonomous driving and the infotainment system worthy of a PlayStation. Without this subscription, you still have the right to 3D mapping, 5G connection, spatial sound and media playback from an external source.
A virtual assistant trained by Sony allows you to have conversations with your car while driving. It is also possible to communicate with passers-by using the screen in the front grille of the car: the media bar.
To take advantage of the large 12.9-inch screens on the passenger seats, you will have to opt for the Signature finish. As are the 21-inch rims, replaced by 19-inch wheels at entry level.
Big battery, but short autonomy
In terms of technical characteristics, the 91 kWh battery allows the Afeela 1 to announce 480 km of autonomy on the American EPA cycle, or around 550 km in WLTP for Europe. For comparison, Tesla’s Model S with a roughly equivalent battery pack climbs to 400 miles of EPA range. Which suggests strong consumption for Afeela.
On the charging side, the car adopts the NACS connector to be compatible with Tesla Superchargers v3 and v4 with a power of only 150 kW.
On the engine side, we can trust an all-wheel drive, with two engines with a power of 244 hp each.
The trunk is huge with around 700 liters of volume up to the ceiling. Not surprising because we are dealing with a long belrine of 4.9 meters long and 1.9 meters wide.
Sony finally specifies that the Affela 1 will also be sold in Japan in 2026. As for other countries and particularly in Europe, nothing is said.
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