Sony Honda Mobility Afeela 1: Release date, price and all you need to know about the 2026 EV
From price and range, to computing power and release date, everything we know so far about the upcoming Afeela 1 from Sony and Honda.
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What happens when Sony and Honda decide to build a car together? A few years ago that might have sounded like a strange question, but today we have the answer and it’s called the Afeela 1.
Although Honda is the carmaker is this unlikely partnership, it was actually Sony, makers of the PlayStation, that began the project. It produced the biggest surprise of the 2020 CES technology show when it pulled the covers off a concept car called the Vision-S.
Two years later, a company called Sony Honda Mobility was formed and the first Afeela 1 prototype was revealed, again at CES. Now, at the 2025 instalment of the world’s biggest tech show, Sony Honda Mobility says the Afeela 1 can be pre-ordered and will go into production in 2026.
Read on to learn all about the Afeela 1, from its onboard tech and entertainment, to Sony and Honda’s plans to sell the EV internationally. This article will be updated as we learn more about the Afeela 1.
Sony Honda Mobility Afeela 1 release date
When Sony revealed its Vision-S concept back in January 2020, it said it had no plans of putting the car into production.
Despite it having a fully-formed interior, complete with a custom operating system running on touchscreen displays, and few of the usual concept car gimmicks, this was strictly a show car to wow the CES crowds.
That said, just a year later at CES 2021 (which was held entirely online due to the pandemic), Sony released footage of it testing a prototype vehicle on public roads, but didn’t mention an intended release date.
By early 2022, Sony had formed a division called Sony Mobility and a second prototype was revealed, this time an SUV called the Vision-S 02. In September that year, the company became Sony Honda Mobility as the Japanese carmaker got on board, and a goal to turn these concept cars into reality was established. At CES 2023 the car was christened Afeela, and its makers said it would be entering the North American market by 2026.
That timeline has held firm for two years, and at CES in January 2025 the company confirmed its first electric car, now called the Afeela 1, will go into production in 2026, and pre-orders are open.
Sony Honda Mobility Afeela 1 price
There are two models of Afeela 1. The first is called the Origin and is priced at $89,900 (£72,900), while the second is called the Signature and it costs $102,900 (£83,400).
There are no optional extras for the Afeela 1, apart from three no-cost paint colours and two no-cost interior colours for Signature buyers to pick from. The Origin is only available in black with a black interior. The higher cost of the Signature includes larger wheels (21in compared to 19in for the Origin), a rear entertainment system comprising two screens for passengers to engage with, and a digital central mirror.
A pre-order website for the Afeela 1 went live in January 2025, with interested buyers able to secure their car with a refundable $200 deposit. However, only residents of California can place a pre-order, at least for now. We expect this to change over time, with the car being made available to other US states and internationally too, but there’s no indication yet as to when that might happen.
Sony Honda Mobility says the pricier of the two variants, the $102,900 SIgnature, will land first, with deliveries estimated to start in mid-2026. The $89,900 Origin will arrive at some point in 2027, the company says. We haven’t seen anything more of the Vision-S 02 since 2022.
Sony Honda Mobility Afeela 1 specification
Back in 2020, Sony suggested its Vision-S concept would be powered by a pair of 200kW motors, accelerate to 60 mph in about 4.5 seconds and have a range in the region of 300 miles. Although it had worked with automotive manufacturer Magma to produce the concept, these figures didn’t mean much as the car wasn’t intended for production.
Now, and despite the order book being open, Sony and Honda are saying little more than that the Afeela 1 has a target range of 300 miles, using the United States’ EPA test cycle.
Instead, the focus is on technology. Sony Honda Mobility says the Afeela 1 has 40 sensors – including 18 cameras, one lidar system (that’s the box at the front of the roof), nine radars and 12 ultrasonic sensors. All of this hardware is used to provide Level 2+ autonomous driver assistance, the company says.
The car will also have its own personal assistant, 3D mapping, a spatial sound system, 5G connectivity, an external information display called the Media Bar, and what SHM calls an “immersive entertainment selection”. Given this is Sony, we’d be amazed if that doesn’t include TV shows, films and video games from the company’s entertainment division. Sony previously said how the Vision-S could run PlayStation games on its dashboard display by connecting to the driver’s console via the car’s 5G connection.
As a sign of the Afeela 1’s technical strength, the pre-order website highlights its 800 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of processing power – a stat normally reserved for the spec sheets of computer processors. For context, Apple’s latest M4 computer chip manages just 38 TOPS.
Lastly, the Afeela 1 will work with Tesla’s US Supercharger network, but a maximum charge rate isn’t known for now, and neither is the car’s battery capacity or power output.
Sony Honda Mobility Afeela 1 latest news and rumours
Like clockwork, Sony has announced fresh news about its first car every year, at the CES tech show in early-January. But with the Afeela 1 available to pre-order (for California residents only, for now) and due on the road next year, we expect to see more news emerge in the coming months.
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