Here’s a question: How much is playing Fortnite natively in your car really worth it?
If it’s worth at least $102,900, consider being one of the first in line to reserve the Sony-Honda Afeela 1. The electric sedan, a joint venture between two of Japan’s top consumer technology companies, was revealed in production spec this evening at CES. And it’s definitely not going to be cheap.
Photo by: InsideEVs
The Afeela 1’s debut model, the Signature series, will start at $102,900 and deliveries are slated to start in mid-2026. If that’s a bit too steep for you, consider waiting until 2027 for the Origin trim. That one is only going to be $89,900. Refundable reservations will be taken online for $200.
Photo by: Honda
Sony-Honda Afeela 1 CES 2025
As we’ve covered at past CES-es and in our virtual tour in New York, the Afeela 1 is the product of a joint venture between Honda and Sony that will also yield an SUV and eventually less expensive electric models. While it’s being built by Honda in Ohio, Sony is very much the one in the driver’s seat here. The car is a kind of attempt to put Japan’s EV offerings on par with the high-tech, software-defined electric models coming out of China lately—and so that Sony doesn’t get left behind in the race to put more technology, gaming and entertainment directly into your car.
Powered by a 91 kWh battery pack, the Afeela 1 boasts two electric motors front and rear rated at 180 kW, so its total system output should be around 480 horsepower. Range is estimated around 300 miles, and it boasts fast-charging speeds of up to 150 kW. The Afeela 1 will pack a Tesla-style North American Charging Standard (NACS) plug from the factory.
Unfortunately, that range and charging speed puts the Afeela 1 far behind many modern EV competitors, especially around that price tag. A similarly priced Lucid Air, for example, has a peak charging rate of over 300 kW and has a range of at least 420 miles.
Photo by: Honda
Sony-Honda Afeela 1 CES 2025
But at tonight’s CES press conference, Sony officials stressed the Afeela 1’s technical competence. The sedan drove itself onstage while mobility chief Yasuhide Mizuno boasted that it came to “near-final” form in less than two years. Mizuno said that the Afeela 1 will have some of the most advanced automated driving assistance features on the market thanks to a total of 40 sensors, including 18 cameras, 1 LIDAR array, nine radar sets and 12 ultrasonic sensors. Only a small handful of LIDAR-equipped cars are, or will be, on the market soon, including the Polestar 3 and Volvo EX90.
Comparisons will inevitably be drawn to Tesla, which is a leader in the automated driving space but controversially does so only with cameras and artificial intelligence—something critics say is good for cost-cutting but leaves the cars less aware and less capable than they would be with other sensor types. “Afeela’s AI perception is used to accurately recognize the surrounding environment, and its AI planner is used to create optimal driving plans,” Mizuno said.
Photo by: Honda
Sony-Honda Afeela 1 CES 2025
Once ADAS is activated, the car “proactively talks to you,” provide the driver and its passengers with useful information about what’s on the road. When parked, it also provides access to in-car entertainment in the form of video games, music, movies and more—much of it from Sony’s vast content library, of course.
Moreover, at least for now, Afeela 1 reservations will only be taken for residents in California, but Mizuno said that there are plans to “gradually expand to other states.”
Will people buy it? It’s a lot of coin for a new brand (albeit one from two household-name players) at a time when the car market, electric or otherwise, is trending heavily toward more affordable models. But it’s also not uncommon for new EV makers to launch with their most expensive and premium models while they work to get manufacturing scale up while driving costs down.
Moreover, in its defense, the Afeela 1 does seem like one of the most technologically advanced cars on the road—LIDAR isn’t cheap and neither is safe, advanced automated driving. The car is also very similar to the kinds of entertainment-packed, software-driven cars increasingly dominating the Chinese market. If this is really Sony’s attempt to catch up, it may just deliver.
However, Sony-Honda may need to work on the range and charging specs between now and 2026 (and 2027) if it really wants the Afeela 1 to be a winner. The EV market is moving fast, and if these two Japanese titans want to justify that price tag, they’ll need a lot more than fancy cruise control and in-car video games.
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Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
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