Earlier this month, Honda made the shock announcement that it would be canceling the three electric vehicles it planned to build in the United States, citing a lack of profitability due to the slowing demand of EVs locally.
Those three cars—the 0 saloon, the 0 SUV, and the Acura RSX—were all supposed to share a next-generation EV platform from Honda. But they weren’t the only cars that planned to use that architecture. There were two other cars set to be built in America using it, too, from Sony and Honda’s joint venture firm, Afeela. Now, those cars are dead.
This is notable mainly because the first car, the Afeela 1 sedan, was basically ready to launch. The company showed a production-intent prototype earlier this year at CES in Las Vegas, which I saw in person. It looked like a real car! Plus, Afeela had six “studio” showrooms set up across California where buyers could sit inside the car and experience its tech. Just four days ago, it launched a whole delivery hub in Torrance. What great timing.
Even if Honda didn’t cancel its EV plans and Afeela moved forward with production, I think it would’ve been doomed anyway, since it wasn’t breaking any ground in the already highly competitive EVs space, whether we’re talking about looks, technology, or price.
Reservation Holders, You’re Getting A Refund
The joint venture between Sony and Honda responsible for the Afeela brand, Sony Honda Mobility (SHM), announced today it’s officially discontinuing development and the launch of both the Afeela 1 sedan and the second, unnamed Afeela crossover shown in January at CES. In its release, the company makes it clear this was pretty much out of its control:
[A]s a result of Honda’s reassessment of its automobile electrification strategy announced on March 12, 2026, SHM will not be able to utilize certain technologies and assets that were originally planned to be provided by Honda at the time of SHM’s initial business planning. In light of this change, SHM has determined that it does not have a viable path forward to bring the Models to market as originally planned.
Hilariously, the announcement to cancel Afeela’s cars comes just four days after the brand held a huge grand opening celebration for its delivery studio in Torrance, California. The event hosted executives, reservations holders, and the mayor of Torrance, and included free drinks and even a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Here’s what it looked like on the ground, going by this LinkedIn video:
The fact that this event happened at all is amusing in a sad sort of way. It was announced on March 16, four days after Honda revealed it’d be killing off its EVs and putting Afeela’s future into limbo. Why the company didn’t delay or cancel the celebration until it knew it had a future is puzzling, though, going by the video above, the vibes seemed pretty upbeat. Perhaps all of the catering was already paid for, and couldn’t be easily refunded. I wonder how all of these people are feeling right now.
It’s unclear what will happen to the delivery hub or the other five studios across California, though, seeing as how the Afeela 1 is effectively dead, there’s no reason to continue paying the rent or the employees to keep them open. The company says it’s refunding reservation holders and “will continue discussions with Sony and Honda regarding its future business plans,” whatever those might be.
Doomed From The Start?
Whether Honda canceled its EV platform or not, these Afeela cars didn’t have a promising future. As we pointed out in January of last year, when the car’s specs were revealed, the 1 sedan didn’t really make any sense. It paired two 241-horsepower motors with a 91-kWh battery pack, delivering an estimated 300 miles of range and a peak DC fast-charging rate of 150 kW, all for $89,900—specs that were uncompetitive back then and even more so now.
The Afeela 1 definitely doesn’t differentiate itself on design, either. It really just looks like a forgettable mashup of five different no-name Chinese EVs, without any defining features. The inside isn’t really much different, as it’s simply a sea of screen and black leather, with a steering yoke that I’m sure wouldn’t have been pleasant to use.
Where Sony Honda Mobility put all its efforts was into making the car a “software-defined vehicle,” using a suite of 40 sensors—cameras, LiDAR, radar, and ultrasonic sensors—for features like driver-assistance systems and high-end audio playback. Inside, occupants could control the car’s functions using natural conversation via the “Afeela Personal Agent.”
It also had a gigantic panoramic screen for a dashboard, and used Unreal Engine, a graphics engine usually powering video games, to run the display. SHM described it more as a fancy living room on wheels than a car. From that 2025 release:
The cabin of AFEELA 1 is designed with the concept of “Mobility as a Creative Entertainment Space.” Each occupant can enjoy a variety of apps and content provided by entertainment partners through an optimized, unique sound system and displays by seat. Sony Honda Mobility’s proprietary noise-canceling technology and expertise provides an overwhelming sense of quietness. The optimally placed speakers featuring Sony’s 360 Spatial Sound Technologies offer an high-quality audio experience with immersive sound. SHM is working on creating unique entertainment experiences using driving and vehicle data through collaborations with external creators and developers.
While all of that sounds pretty neat, it’s unlikely this would’ve been enough to win over buyers in America. When you can get a Lucid Air Touring, with more power and a lot more range, all for less money, what’s the point in buying the Sony? It might’ve been different if Honda or Sony already had a reputation for good, cutting-edge vehicle tech, but this was going to be a first for both companies in this segment, so it was totally unproven.
Either way, it’s always sad to see a car die before it has the chance to hit the road. Perhaps in a few years, SHM will reemerge with something new. Until then, we’ll be waiting.
Top graphic image: Sony Honda Mobility
I went to an afeela evetn a year or two ago and even then no one could tell me why this mattered. without honda it makes zero sense
Finally. That thing was dead on arrival.
Common sense has prevailed and cancelled something that never made sense in the first place. Also, enough with the stupid yokes FFS…
Thank you all for coming. Unfortunately the bride has had second thoughts. Buy hey, we’re all here and there’s plenty of food. Let’s make this a celebration of friendship and everyone have a good time! (Sob!)
That’s rough buddy
Almost definitely that event was fully paid for and non-refundable at the time of Honda’s announcement.
Bad move. Australia is days away from instigating gas rationing, and many Asian nations already have put limits into place. This is how volatile gas is. It’s going to crush the global economy. Everyone should have stayed the course on EVs.
Dude, people just want a car that gets them to work in the morning.
They really should have screened that interior design.
COTD
What a weird thing. How/why did Afeela and Sony sign a contract with Honda that allowed Honda to crash their entire plan?
All of this diving headfirst into EVs and then diving headfirst out of EVs is getting a bit ridiculous. I’m not sure who benefits from this short term thinking.
Nobody, but it gets investors excited so it must happen.
anything ev was a guarantee to boost the stock price during 2020~2021 so yea…
Sony peeked with the Trinitron.
Have the day you voted for.
I was going to say PS2, but Trinitron was what made that and many other gadgets possible, so you’re right!
Sony was the aspiration brand in my formative years.
These days, besides their CMOS imaging sensors, I cannot think of anything they offer that is market competitive.
Asking them to be “leading” would be a bridge too far.
Jokes aside of “generic EV’ styling, I kind of like it.
It’s a 5-door liftback that doesn’t seem unpleasant to look at, and likely would be easy to live with.
I guess I’ll just have to keep living out my Afeela dreams in Gran Turismo
/sad electric car and playstation controller noises
The Afeela on GT7 does outpunch its PP, but all of the EVs in the game are awful to drive.
They drive like bricks because of the weight. Although I have a soft spot for the Hyundai N 2025 VGT, it’s a VGT so it’s entirely unrealistic.
My son loves the Skoda VGT and I just can’t drive it well. I’m not good at judging my entry speed when I don’t have gears.
ha 100% with the lack of gears and the lack of engine note I routinely under brake and miss corners in the EVs. I swear I’ve read some reviews saying this is actually a difficult paradigm shift IRL too.
I’ve gotten so used to driving by engine note in GT games over the years it’s now how I also drive my actual car. I’d like to pick up a cheaper used EV for the days I’m exhausted and want an appliance for my commute, but I think it would take me a while to readjust.
I haven’t had the luxury of actually doing any track days, but I think this is actually kind of normal? Pretty sure I remember a Throttle House series where the host built an e46 BMW into a track day car and he commented that one of his first modifications was a louder exhaust so he had aural cues of what the car was doing.
YMMV but having driven a couple of EVs in more relaxed circumstance I found it surprisingly easy to adjust-I got to borrow my brother’s used Tesla he bought during covid while staying with him for a few days and outside of the speed that can creep up on you I found it surprisingly easy to get used to-and that was the insanely fast P85D model. I’ve also driven a BMW i3 a couple times (there was a public car share service BMW had here for a few years in the late teens) and it was quite a pleasant little car to drive, I see why this site’s David Tracy likes his so much. Before changing jobs to one that’s 100% remote in November I’d been considering shopping for one as clean i3s have gotten pretty cheap.
I’ve been considering a Fiat 500e. I can’t charge at home, but there are a dozen chargers within half a mile of work and I work third, so they’re pretty much all deserted when I’d be charging anyway. Some of them are across the street from my office. I drive less than 100 miles in an average week so range is almost irrelevant. Total commute for work is 20 miles a day, four days a week, and throw in a bit for grocery shopping.
Nice I imagine that’s a great little commuter and super easy to park.
Does the Air GT start at $115k?
Yes it does. They must have meant the Touring at $80K.
Ah that’s it. And looks like $40k used with <20k miles. Wild.
Oops! Yes, I did mean the Touring. That’s been corrected, thank you for pointing it out
They took all of the worst features of every EV (yoke steering, nothing but screens) and were planning to charge an insane amount of money for a very average car.
Even if the US had Bizarro World-ed itself into an EV Utopia, I highly doubt this would’ve been a successful venture.
Yes. Literally every complaint drivers would have expected a legacy brand like Honda to address.
Sadly, it seems like “mediocre first EV attempt as a learning experience” is basically a rite of passage at this point. Unfortunately, I think Honda has waited like 5 years too late for that to be acceptable. Maybe they are secretly pulling a Ford and working on a $35,000 EV, but I highly doubt it. The fact I can’t go buy a hybrid Odyssey or Pilot right now should also be a major point of embarrassment.
It’s kinda funny looking back at the Nissan / Honda takeover, and wondering if maybe the roles could be reversed in 10 years.
The next-gen Odyssey, Pilot, and Ridgeline platform will offer a hybridized V6. They may be hybrid only, I’m not sure, but I do know the current one is the final non-hybrid generation for each of these. Totally agree they’re late to the party, but there’s at least something in the works.
Wow, just wow. I did not see that coming /s
If it was called Accord EV without the gimmicks and priced according to the market, it could have a future. Can I be the next CEO? Thanks.
Seriously. I do not understand what is so god damn hard about making an EV fucking normal. Just call it Accord (no EV in the name, people will figure it out, we’re not morons) and make it handsome. That’s all Tesla did. Yes, the Model S and Model 3 are handsome, at least compared to their competitors.
Do you have a demonstrated ability to make bad long-term decisions for quarterly gains, place everyone’s opinions far below your own, propagate lasting damage to a corporation, and then float away from the chaos and fire on a multi-million dollar cloud? Then, no. No you may not be CEO.
But I can learn to do those things! Just give me a chance!
Tell you what, get some experience ruining some small companies and putting a few dozen people out of work first, then we’ll talk about it. Even our prez had to learn how to run casinos and real estate into the ground before we let him have a turn with the biggest economy in the world.
You are right, that was my Engineering brain doing the talking. Let me throw some fancy parties first to showcast my non existent product, get funding from investors, talk to my state governor about the future plant expansion, promise all these jobs and when I launch, cancel the product and give it a death date cof cof chevy bolt
Sony has been saved from themselves. I think everyone questioned this idea when it was announced, and I still don’t see how it made a good business case. I trust Honda pretty well, but I don’t know what Sony brought to the table. The space they wanted this to play in is already crowded, and I’ve never seen anyone clamoring for Sony software.
I’m also convinced that barely anyone wants to talk to their car to make it do things. I could be wrong, I have no marketing data to back that up. But I think we’ve all had less-than-stellar experiences with Siri/Google/any other voice-activated product to know it’s an exercise in frustration.
In Star Trek, talking to the computer looks cool and futuristic, especially in 1980’s TNG when the best your car could do was tell you the door was ajar. In a car, it takes to much time to change the HVAC or radio versus just pressing a button or two.
Preach. I am not doing sci-fi cosplay. I’m trying to drive to a place and actually arrive there in one piece.
I sometimes use Siri to dictate responses to text messages. It works pretty well for “I will get the eggs”, “See you in 45min” etc.
That’s about where it starts and ends for most people, I suspect.
I sometimes use it to find & set destinations, but generally it’s just easier to find the address on your phone before you even leave the house.
It’s absolutely rage inducing when Siri or Google can only find the address in the wrong province or country.
Like when it keeps trying to take me to a taco bell in Nebraska because I forgot I had my VPN on.
Google pisses me off the most. One because I have an Android, so that’s what I use. But the other is that they gather more data than maybe any company in history, and they STILL SUCK AT IT. My wife’s name is Erin, and no matter how times I fix it afterwards, it always puts in Aaron.
I got a laugh out of Google Maps a few years ago after helping someone move to a small city with a “numbers & letters” street grid. A couple of the stores we used most were on A Street, and the voice prompts kept giving us the vague instruction to “turn left on a street” when we got there.
But yeah. My sole use for voice commands is to say “associate” when I’m in phone tree hell and tapping 0 doesn’t summon a human.
My “favorite” fsckup by Gemini recently was when I tried to have it navigate to the nearest auto parts store, and instead of doing something useful it popped up a text listing of the addresses of all the auto parts stores in a 20 mile radius. Not a selectable list, mind you, just plain text results.
Yeah, I keep reading stuff saying people in China love talking to their cars, and I guess I believe it, because why make that shit up? And there are a ton of people in China. BUT it doesn’t mean anyone else would want to do anything more than “text SpouseName: Stuck in traffic. You need to pickup kiddo.”
I completely agree with your assertion that most people don’t want to talk to their car. First, there are lots of times when it would be disruptive (sleeping children, music playing, carrying on a conversation, etc.)
Second, taking to any kind of software “agent” is never intuitive and human-like. There is always going to be some language that they don’t understand (e.g., saying “air conditioning” instead of “climate control” or “temperature,”) which is frustrating. Voice control has been around for like two decades now, and although it’s gotten better, it is nowhere near human conversation level and likely won’t be for a very, very long time.
I literally do not understand how auto manufacturers don’t understand this. Surely, focus groups will expose how little voice controls are used.
It depends if they are listening to the focus groups, or still in the “We will tell our customers what they want, and they will pay us a re-occurring subscription for it” phase.
The focus group thing is tough because initial impressions are very much not the same as living with something, though people who do the research know that. But I firmly believe a lot of tech in cars is simply to wow people on the showroom floor, not to be good long-term.
“Agent”: Please state your problem.
Me: When I put my card in the machine, it gives me error code 3219 and won’t process.
“Agent”: I’m sorry. Please say “billing”, “check my balance”, “lost card”, or “other”.
Me: Operator
<star key><star key><pound key><pound key><zero><zero><zero>
My biggest frustration recently has been with automakers installing these chatbot features in cars without actually tying them to the car. I don’t really need to know how much cheese Cabot sells in a year when I’m driving, but I do need to know where the damn on-screen glovebox button is hiding or how to turn off lane-keep assist on a narrow road. When voice assistants work with in-car features, they can be helpful. A lot of these that just seem to be “uh, add Gemini in it and have it work for the nav” aren’t.
It’s hella gimmicky and the easier solution would be to have usable controls. Also, I’ve had bronchitis for the past week and I can’t talk worth a damn, so voice controls are out anyway. You know what doesn’t care if you can talk, or if you have an accent or vocal condition these systems struggle with? Physical buttons and knobs.
It is hugely popular in China though.
Is it though? Sending voice snippets through messaging apps it, but does that mean that everyone over there is talking to their cars?
I’ve worked in China during the late 2010s when these things were starting to take off, and yes, lots of them use the voice activation systems for even basic functions, like navigation and adjusting the temperature.
To that end Chinese carmakers further fine-tuned their systems to be more accurate and perceptive to Chinese speech patterns for these customers.
Looks like the yoke is on them.
Yeah, Sony and Honda weren’t Afeela’n it so they took their ball and went home.
It seems like they couldn’t reach an Accord, leading to us all getting an Insight into how this collaboration has split into its base Elements.
Those poor reservation holders are going to have to Walk, Man.
Afeela mistake was dodged. As for “Afeela Personal Agent”? Sounds like that would be a little too personal.
See also Albert King “Personal Manager”
It just wasn’t the right Fit.
Vaio why did they even embark on this Odyssey? If past is Prologue, they could have figured they didn’t have ATRAC record that bodes well for joint ventures.
Two hardware companies, at least one of them with a terrible record for software development, trying to make a “software-first” car.. was probably always going to be a terrible idea.
I totally read your first sentence expecting it to say “Two hardware companies, both alike in dignity…”
Annnnd there goes another project I’m working on.
Oof. Sorry to hear.
Luckily for me I don’t think that Honda can afford to cancel the next two projects they have the company I work for contracted to do!
That’s at least pretty good! Good luck.
Hopefully there’s no “hold my Sake” moment coming. Honda hasn’t been known to shoot themselves in the foot very often, but damned if they aren’t making up for lost time.
I’m hoping for you. It’s really not fun to pour months of your life into something and have it all flushed away or put on hold indefinitely. Been there myself.
Could be worse. One of my college friends spent plenty of time on the GM EV1 project back in the day.
Ross Brawn called. He’d buy out Honda’s EV project for a dollar.
As that wise sage, Meatloaf, once said, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”
Honda’s actions are questionable. We’re also in the midst of gas prices soaring – which would be a more receptive audience for EVs again.
But, you know, gotta bend the knee to the administration.
Yeah, it’s totally baffling to me. It sounded like Honda wanted to put serious effort into releasing an EV only to yoink it right as a lot of folks are thinking an EV sounds pretty good.
I don’t think the Afeela was ever going to be a major hit—that interior looks like a nightmare to use, the specs are super uncompetitive, and who thought that handsy name was a good idea?!—but I’m genuinely confused by Honda’s pull-back, current administration or not. It all just seems like they’re shooting themselves in the wiener at precisely the wrong time.
And they are still behind the ball on hybrids.
It looks a lot like Honda needs to adjust its course. It continues to look like that merger with Nissan would have really helped them as much as Nissan.
I don’t think they’re super behind the ball there. The CR-V, Civic and Accord hybrids are pretty good, and I’d even go as far as to say a lot smoother-driving than Toyota’s systems. Heck, the CR-V Hybrid was my pick of that class of compact SUVs in the comparo test we ran at Cars Dot Com.
I don’t think they need Big Altima Energy, but some reasonably priced EVs certainly wouldn’t have hurt right now.
They definately continue to put out products that are at the top of their class, no doubt about that. I think the issue is that they are a few years behind on the launch. They’re overdue for a hybrid odyssey and a hybrid pilot option would be good as well. I don’t doubt they can make a great hybrid minivan and midsize crossover. But being a few years behind in their segments opens up the door.
Oh yeah. A bigger hybrid SUV seems like a major omission.
As much as this admin has made running any business difficult, let alone an auto company, I’m not sure this car had a market as this article pointed out.
This particular car wasn’t great, but coupled with cancelling all of the other EVs? That’s poor planning.
It was an electric car from yesterday that depended on promising the tech of tomorrow. Not a great combo. Its Honda EV platform-mates seemed pretty cool though.
“We’re also in the midst of gas prices soaring”
The answer to high gas prices is a bland electric sedan with a $90k price tag?????
“gotta bend the knee to the administration”
The rest of the world still exists. Many other countries strongly incentivize and/or require EVs. If this was a competitive product, it would have no problem selling in the rest of the world. Further, you can still buy an EV in the US if you want one. Americans don’t appear want this particular EV.
It is easy to point the finger at trump whenever an EV project fails, but realistically, some EVs fail because they were either bad ideas from the start or good ideas that failed due to poor execution. Afeela seems like both.
To be clear, this isn’t JUST about the Afeela, but the entire platform getting shitcanned very close to launch.
As for the comment about bending the knee, they were geared to North America.
I will agree it was odd to dump the entire program close to launch. Although, I suspect there were strong reasons to be skeptical of the demand for Honda’s cheaper EVs as well.
If the Prologue is any indication, the new Honda EVs were likely to be $45k+ vehicles with few, if any, points of differentiation from their competition. I don’t think a $45k also-ran EV is any better of a solution to high gas prices than the catastrophically stupid $90k Afeela.
Again, I know everyone likes to blame trump for killing EV demand, but I don’t think he is the problem. The real culprit is that ICE vehicles and hybrids are just really good at providing affordable, reliable, and convenient transportation. If you need to blame government policy for something, look at the policies that artificially inflated demand and led companies like Honda to invest in products people never wanted.
To be 100% clear, I am not anti EV (my daily driver is a Model 3; my previous daily was a Leaf). I think they can and will sell on their own merit eventually.
I agree with you when it came to Honda’s three EVs, but no one was going to buy the Affela. As mentioned in the article, it’s totally uncompetitive. It would have been uncompetitive at $40,000, let alone more than twice that. It’s also in a market segment that has been dying for a long time. Why this wasn’t cancelled months ago is beyond me.
I doubt many buyers of $90K cars care about fuel prices. Rationing. Now that might get their attention.
“I can’t get to yoga class today because the Escalade is running dry!”