The upcoming AFEELA EV, a joint effort between Sony and Honda, is now available for viewing to the public in Los Angeles, in advance of its scheduled California release in 2026.
We first heard about Sony’s upcoming EV back at CES 2020, where the company announced a surprise EV concept which, frankly, we never thought would happen.
Fast forward to now, and after a lot of developments and a partnership with Honda, Sony is now promising that the vehicle will be available next year – in California, at least. It recently started taking $200 reservations, though those are limited to California only for the time being.
In advance of this release, Sony Honda Mobility (SHM) is now showing the car to the public, in what has become a popular method for EV makers (ever since Tesla and George Blankenship pioneered it): opening a mall location.
That spot is right in the heart of where the AFEELA EV might be the most popular – Century City, a neighborhood of Los Angeles with a long history of attachment to the movie industry, at the Westfield Century City mall on Santa Monica Blvd.
The studio opened to the public this weekend, and will be open for the next six months (until August 1). The public can come around at any time and have a look at the vehicle and ask questions, or can book a demo of the car’s interior and technologies (but no test drives yet, though).
We previously had a chance to get hands on with the AFEELA prototype at the same mall, though that was at a temporary booth rather than a dedicated space. It was full of quite a few neat features, but there was still a lot of work to be done.
As a reminder, SHM recently announced a $89,900 base price for the AFEELA, though left the door open for additional subscription fees for some features after an initial 3-year period. The first available trim level, the AFEELA 1 Signature, will start at $102,900.
So, if you’d like to check it out for yourself and are in Southern California, you can head on over any time, or book a time slot in advance for an in-car demonstration.
Electrek’s Take
I’ve been impressed with the maturity of the pace of Sony’s announcements with this vehicle. While it seemed a little pie-in-the-sky originally when they announced the concept, every year they’ve refined it and have mostly kept away from making unrealistic promises or crazy timelines, unlike some other EV startups out there.
That is, until last year, when they joined the AI buzzword bandwagon, which seemed like a total waste of time. Plus, the recent announcement of a $90k base price and additional suggestion of long-term subscription fees for feature use was not great to hear – but that hasn’t been finalized yet, so we’ll have to see exactly where things go from here.
There does still seem to be a lot of work to do over the course of the next year before the AFEELA’s “mid-2026” release, but things do thing to be progressing at a reasonable pace
And, oddly enough, despite its late entry to the EV market, this is still going to be one of the first Japanese EVs available in the US. Toyota has the bZ4X (and the derivate Lexus RZ and Subaru Solterra), Nissan has the Leaf and Ariya, and Honda has the Prologue (and Acura ZDX) – which is made in partnership with GM. Meanwhile, a company known for its consumer entertainment products is going to jump into the pack with the rest of its country’s auto industry – by building a ground-up EV before some of its countrymen did so.
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