- Sony Honda Mobility has scrapped the Afeela EV project
- “It does not have a viable way forward,” reveals a new statement
- Pressure mounts on Honda to stem losses
Anyone who has attended the Consumer Electronics Show over the past decade will have experienced the hype surrounding Sony Honda Mobility – but that bubble has now sadly burst as the joint venture scrapped its long-awaited Afeela project.
The venture was officially announced in 2022 and came about after Sony debuted its headline-grabbing Vision S concept car at the turn of the decade.
Although relatively generic on the outside, the electric vehicle promised Sony’s computing power on the inside, effectively turning the cabin into a movie-obsessed, button-based paradise for fans of Triple-A titles.
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Over the following years, the project evolved, and Sony Honda Mobility (SHM) eventually announced two electric vehicles in the original, roughly $100,000 Afeela 1 sedan and a more conventional SUV in the similarly expensive Afeela 2. The former was due to be delivered to California customers later this year.
But the joint venture has announced that it will not pursue the project in light of the fact that Honda has recently scaled back its EV business. Honda said earlier this week it would take a 2.5 trillion yen ($15.7 billion) write-down as it trims its EV plans, pushing the company into its first annual loss in nearly 70 years, according to Pakinomist.
In a statement released by Sony Honda Mobility, the joint venture said that as a result of Honda’s reassessment of its electrification strategy, it will not be able to “use certain technologies and assets originally planned to be provided by Honda at the time of SHM’s initial business planning”.
However, Sony, Honda and SHM will continue to “discuss and evaluate the future of SHM”, with a further announcement on the future direction of the joint venture coming soon.
But for those who put down early deposits for Afeela 1, SHM has said it will issue a full refund of the booking fees received.
Analysis: Honda was left behind
The Sony Honda Mobility project became a bit of a running joke among those who regularly covered the latest tech trends at CES, as it rolled out almost every year wearing a slightly different exterior hue or subtly updated styling.
By the time it reached the point where the joint venture was ready to take deposits for its oddly named sedan, the EV technology powering the vehicle was already outdated, and 300 miles of range for over $100,000 simply wasn’t competitive.
Some were even tougher. According to Pakinomist, Travis Lundy of Quiddity Advisors said shortly before the announcement that Afeela was “doomed to fail”, calling it a “weird vanity project” that was unlikely to become central to Honda’s future.
Despite all the talk of PlayStation 5 games inside and the ability to watch high definition movies, very little was known about the way it drove, the capabilities of its autonomous driving functionality and what it was like to live with.
We do know that it supported relatively slow charging speeds of 150kW – a disappointing figure given that a Kia costing a fraction of the asking price can charge at 350kW – and that its 0-60mph acceleration time was a relatively sluggish five seconds.
Throw in the fact that the current Trump administration has removed most subsidies for electric vehicles and imposed tariffs on most imports, and the joint venture’s decision to kill the project isn’t particularly surprising.
It probably would have lost money and been left in the dust by the latest battery, autonomous driving and in-car technology coming out of China and beyond.
The rate at which EV technology is improving is relentless, and many legacy automakers are finding it very difficult to keep up. RIP Afeela.
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