The Sony Afeela Was Doomed to Fail

Sony-Honda is not any longer Afeelin’ it. This week, the Japanese three way partnership that for years had promised to carry a video-game sensitivity to a digital-first electrical automobile was abruptly canceled. The two firms snuffed out one automobile, the Afeela 1that was first introduced three years in the past, and in addition halted work on one other mannequin beneath improvement.

Sony Honda Mobility (SHM) pinned the blame on Honda’s bigger EV pivot. Earlier this month, the automaker canceled its “0 Series” lineup of electrical autos after posting a $15.7 billion loss amid larger adjustments within the global EV market. Because of these shifts, the three way partnership wrote in a press launch, “SHM will not be able to utilize certain technologies and assets that were originally planned to be provided by Honda.”

Reservation holders will get full refunds, the corporate stated, and “discussions” about the way forward for the Sony-Honda partnership “will continue.” So the PlayStation-first automobile of everybody’s goals should still be far forward on the horizon, possibly.

The Afeela, although, was a bizarre match from the beginning. Let’s put apart the odd title and its cornucopia of related pun alternatives. (We will settle for late-breaking submissions within the feedback.) For one factor, the Afeela 1’s launch was infinite.

Sony first introduced its precursor, then known as the Vision-S, again in 2020. The Afeela itself was the star of the Sony-Honda present at CES 4 consecutive instances. A “near production” refined prototype made an look in Las Vegas simply this past January. But by then, the entire idea felt a bit stale. A “computer on wheels” was type of novel in 2020; Now, a “software-defined vehicle” is the assumed place to begin for each new automobile.

The automobile’s specs, as soon as introduced in 2025, did not do the model any favors. The Afeela 1 was an electrical sedan within the US market, the place electrical SUVs are the popular profile. It had an estimated vary of 300 miles, piddling in contrast to different new luxurious EVs just like the Lucid Air (420 miles), the Mercedes-Benz EQS (390 miles), and the Rivian R1 (410 thousand). On that luxurious level: The Afeela 1’s $90,000 value made it significantly uncompetitive-feeling as different automakers stored asserting new models. The Afeela 1 was slated for debut in late 2026, however just for consumers in California.

It’s an open query whether or not the Afeela 1’s entertainment selling point is one thing customers need or want from a automobile proper now. The sedan’s promised autonomous driving capabilities have been supposed to be imminent, and so the automobile was stuffed to preserve all nondrivers good and distracted: screens on the sprint and in entrance of passenger seats; built-in PlayStation Remote Play; visible “themes”; tons of in-car apps. True self-driving performance, although, has but to come to private automobiles. Do folks really need to sit of their stationary autos and play? Now it is a query for the farther-off future.

But Sony-Honda’s best problem might have been America’s stop-start approach to electric vehicles. Consumer uptake of battery-powered automobiles has stalled for the reason that US federal authorities cut support for each EV-curious clients and people assembling EVs and their parts in American factories. BloombergNEF, which estimated in 2024 that EVs would account for practically half of recent US automobile gross sales in 2030, reduced its projection to 27 p.c final yr—a minimize of 14 million automobile gross sales.

Honda, already a late-bloomer within the EV house, clearly does not imagine that it is price spending gobs of cash proper now to meet up with the trade’s battery-powered leaders. The unhappy story of the Afeela, then, might be a C-plot within the darker story of the US EV market. We’re feeling blue, too.