Honda-Sony Joint Venture (SHM) introduces its first model
- Sony Honda Mobility (a 50/50 joint venture between Sony and Honda) presented a new car, the Afeela 1, at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, which will be marketed under the SHM (Sony Honda Mobility) brand in Japan and the United States from summer 2026.
- Developed in partnership with Honda, the car, which is fully electric, comes in the form of a large E-segment sedan (4.90 m long, 1.90 m wide, 1.46 m high, 3.00 m wheelbase). The Afeela 1 will be produced in a Honda plant in the United States (Sony does not have an automobile assembly plant) located in Marysville, Ohio. This plant is currently the assembly site dedicated to the Honda Accord, where 185,000 units have left the assembly lines.
- Details of the Afeela 1’s engine have not yet been revealed, but the company has specified that its range is 480 km according to the WLTP cycle and that the car weighs 2,345 kilos. The announced price for the United States of the Afeela 1 is $89,900 (71,794 euros) for the base Origin version and $102,900 (82,182 euros) for the luxury Signature version. This pricing puts it in competition with the most high-end battery-electric models, such as the Tesla Model S (between $73,490 and $88,490) and Lucid Air (from $69,900 to $249,000).
- It is difficult to see from the initial information presented what could be the added value or the real differentiator factor of this model compared to the Tesla Model S or Lucid Air. In addition, the price positioning of the Afeela 1 does not give it an advantage. Finally, the American and Japanese markets are not the most important (currently or in development) for battery electric models. This is why we do not see significant volumes for this model in the short to medium term, in the order of 5,000 units per year. But perhaps the objective of Sony and Honda is not initially to make volume but to test on a large scale future technologies that will subsequently be deployed on other Honda and Sony models.