In a little over a year, Sony Honda Mobility expects to launch the Afeela 1, a battery-electric sedan that’s been very visibly half a decade in the making. When I ask CEO Yasuhide Mizuno about the challenges the joint venture has faced in its brief history, he talks about the work to swiftly integrate Sony’s software with Honda’s hardware, to realize this unique union of competencies and bring it to market in the shortest possible time. However, Mizuno says the company’s “number one” challenge lies in the year ahead, and I can see why.
“We’re having deliveries happen one year from now, so we’re going to go to production,” Mizuno told me in an interview through an interpreter at CES earlier this week in Las Vegas. “Now, we want to make that production and hit our goals, but, while we’re doing that we still want to keep that level of quality. That’s probably the number one challenge for us at this point.”
Quality is something that SHM appears to have going for it. I sat inside a pre-production Afeela 1 Signature, the earliest model that will hit showrooms sometime in “mid 2026,” and I was impressed by the fit and finish of everything from the leather on the steering wheel and snug driver’s seat, to the dash fabric and solid-feeling and premium-looking plastic stalks and buttons. But then I should be impressed, because the Afeela 1 Signature costs $102,990. And that has generated some conversation across the automotive sphere over the last few days, to put it mildly.
For that money, Afeela offers a sedan with a total of 482 horsepower, split evenly between electric motors on the front and rear axles. They deliver a projected range of 300 miles on a full charge from a 91-kWh battery pack. That’s not a considerable energy capacity, which is fortunate because the peak charging rate is 150 kW, about half of what some new, high-end EVs claim. At least there’s a NACS port on board, so Tesla Supercharger access is a given.
When I asked Mizuno how SHM arrived at those figures, he confirmed the 300-mile range and said that it could’ve been better, but then the car’s battery would’ve been larger. The Afeela 1 utilizes Honda’s next-generation EV architecture that will underpin the production versions of Honda’s 0 Series Saloon and SUV prototypes, which are also due to reach customers in 2026 alongside the Afeela 1. All three cars will be built at Honda’s new EV hub in Marysville, Ohio.
The calculus of range versus battery size is a tough one for EV makers today. The easiest way to improve range is to increase capacity, which in turn increases weight, the greatest enemy of range. This vicious cycle is perhaps why Honda’s ethos for its own EVs is “Thin, Light, and Wise.” The advent of solid-state batteries will supposedly solve this problem, or at least mitigate it to the point where most EVs will be able to quell the average American’s range anxiety, but that is, of course, still many years away.
On this particular issue, perhaps Afeela should’ve made range more of a priority; Mizuno told me that it’s among his potential customers’ greatest concerns according to surveys, alongside ease and cost of service and regular maintenance. Other EV makers have been able to extract better endurance from similarly sized battery packs, particularly Lucid, whose Air sedan promises up to 420 miles even with an 84-kWh unit. The Air’s entry-level Pure trim costs $71,400, by the way, and can recharge at a peak of 250 kW. The least expensive Afeela 1 Origin will begin at $89,900, but that version won’t reach buyers until 2027.
Interestingly, something that doesn’t tend to come up very high on consumer surveys, Mizuno told me, is advanced driver assistance features. And yet, ADAS is arguably the Afeela 1’s primary focus. At launch, the sedan will offer what the CEO described as “Level 2+” ADAS, broadly similar to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving or Ford’s BlueCruise services. The driver will be able to take their hands off the wheel, though they’ll have to remain attentive in all scenarios. However, the Afeela 1, with its 18 cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors, nine radars, and single lidar, should be capable of even greater autonomy—if SHM were permitted to deploy it, anyway.
“We are aiming to have Level 4 in the vehicle in the near future,” Mizuno said. “Of course, that does depend on laws and regulations … it really varies depending on the jurisdiction. However, we are shooting for Level 4, and from a technical standpoint we can do that.”
In the meantime, the driver won’t be able to kick back and watch Venom on the Afeela 1’s vast dash display while on the move, but their front passenger will and, if they sprung for the Signature model over the Origin, rear passengers could even enjoy programming of their own choosing on the sedan’s pair of seat-back screens. Sony’s prowess in acoustics allows the vehicle to tailor auditory experiences to four occupants independently.
That got me wondering something else: Why start with a sedan and not an SUV? North America appears to be a very significant market for the Afeela 1, if not the most significant. It’s where the car will be built after all, and of course, Americans love their SUVs. Perhaps recognizing this, Honda’s first 0 Series model to reach the U.S. public out of the very same factory will indeed be an SUV.
The way SHM sees it, most brands start with a sedan as a more aspirational flagship. Honda had the Accord, for example. Mizuno said that if SHM were Rivian, sure, it’d start with a truck—but SHM is a mobility company. I can understand the rationale across global markets, but when you’re talking about the U.S., SUVs have objectively become the default car. At least, that’s what the market has been telling the industry.
I can’t shake the sense that there’s a pattern here; a disconnect between what Afeela wants to be and what customers seem to want at all. I asked Mizuno why he believed that survey respondents didn’t rank ADAS highly. He supposed, as did I, that it’s because people don’t really know what’s possible, and that the kind of autonomy that Afeela is chasing isn’t real to them yet. The world didn’t ask for an iPhone back in 2007, but then Steve Jobs showed everyone how they couldn’t live without one. That is, in some respects, the duty of an innovator.
At the same time, you have got to meet people halfway. A particular sticking point for many who have followed the Afeela news this past week is the company’s subscription model. As it stands, that suite of assisted driving features (called “Afeela Intelligent Drive”) and the AI-derived Afeela Personal Agent will only be free for the first three years of ownership. After that point, they will carry a yet-to-be-announced recurring fee. It’s basically the cornerstone of the vehicle, and it’s not included in the MSRP if you plan to own one of these for longer than 36 months. Hell—if you plunked down a $200 deposit this week to reserve your Afeela 1, you don’t know how much that tech is going to cost you years down the line.
Plus, remember: The Afeela 1, like pretty much every car nowadays, will in all likelihood be limited to Level 2 self-driving out of the gate. Early adopters will get that tech for free, but how long will it take SHM to make good on its promises of Level 4 eyes-off driving? More importantly, how long until statehouses allow it to? If you paid for those 40 sensors and only have the opportunity to use them to their fullest extent after the trial period, that’s bound to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Why not claw back some of that goodwill by including Intelligent Drive with the cost of the vehicle, at least for Signature buyers, rather than providing just a three-year trial? It’d reward Afeela’s earliest advocates with peace of mind, and favorably set the brand apart from subscription-happy rivals. SHM could limit it to the vehicle’s first owner if it wanted, or qualify it some other way.
“We were able to give our presentation as we expected, and that’s been great,” Mizuno told me, reflecting on the brand’s showing this past week. “And we’ve also been starting our reservations, we’re extremely happy about that. However, going forward, we have some stuff where we need to be careful about. So we’re also feeling a lot of pressure as well.”
The Afeela 1 is a year out from sale, and with its price and performance announced, there are few secrets left. This time is tremendously valuable though, because SHM can use it to listen to feedback. Hear people’s pain points, and adjust where possible. It’s a way to turn this year of challenges into one that sets the new company on a path to a secure future. And the great thing about pressure is that, if you play it right, it can make you better.
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