The Afeela, an electric car being developed in a joint venture by Sony and Honda, is no longer coming to market.
Both the Afeela 1 and the second model have been dropped, the companies have announced.
This comes from a report via Asian outlet Nikkei, which says Sony and Honda have decided to "discontinue the development and launch of its first model, AFEELA1, and its second model".
This is apparently due to "changes in the EV market and Honda's reassessment of its electrification strategy".
According to VGC, Honda has also cancelled plans for several other electric vehicle launches in North America, with expected losses of $15.7 billion.
"The underlying assumptions of Sony Honda Mobility’s business operations, such as the utilization of certain technologies and assets planned to be provided by Honda, were fundamentally altered," says a statement from Sony Honda Mobility.
The joint venture has existed since 2021, with the Afeela planned to be a "premium entertainment experience" on wheels.
It was intended for the car to feature a lot of integration with PlayStation tech and theming. The Afeela was set to feature Remote Play, allowing passengers to play PS5 games on screens inside the car.
Additionally, it was announced that the dashboard would be customisable, with several PlayStation themes planned. This would allow you to deck out your Afeela with themes based on Astro Bot, God of War, and more.
Unfortunately it seems the project has been scrapped — but you can at least drive the Afeela virtually via Gran Turismo 7, so that's something.
Were you excited about the Afeela? Tell us in the comments section below.
[source asia.nikkei.com, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 24
Oh no!
Anyways...
Probably for the best.
While we all like the idea of playing games on the go the idea of someone playing GOW on the M1 sounds terrifying
What a colossal waste of time and money this was. How many CES presentations did they wheel this out on stage? I can think of at least two or three.
But it wasn't ps5 integrated, it just supported remote play. A shame this site has resorted to click/rage bait titles.
I'll take "big" surprises for 100, Alec.
Seems like part of a larger number of EVs from multiple car companies no longer coming to the US due to deteriorating market conditions as we slog through year two of our great leap backwards.
@Amnesiac only 2 more to go, hang in there!
@Amnesiac Exactly there is a combination of issues. The orange one effectively destroying the non-Tesla EV market in the US after bribing the pro oil lobby to fund his campaign in exchange for his anti environment policies (not that he needed it as he would have done so anyway) coupled with a slower than ideal take up globally and all the other various world issues affecting sales is bad enough.
Apparently the car is looking outdated compared to the competition is another factor alongside Honda’s epic fail with their F1 engine and they are going to be changing focus.
@NH1402 Literally from the article: "It was intended for the car to feature a lot of integration with PlayStation tech and theming. The Afeela was set to feature Remote Play, allowing passengers to play PS5 games on screens inside the car.
Additionally, it was announced that the dashboard would be customisable, with several PlayStation themes planned. This would allow you to deck out your Afeela with themes based on Astro Bot, God of War, and more."
EVs never seemed practical to me, so I’m unsurprised by this. I remember for a while Tesla (which sold a relative handful of heavily subsidized cars) was worth more than the rest of the American auto industry combined because they were selling electric cars whereas everybody was selling a lot more vehicles at better margins but those vehicles used old fashioned gasoline.
I’m not religious about fossil fuels or opposed to the idea of something cleaner and/or less concentrated in global hotspots replacing it but in the present and the near term EVs aren’t it.
This is just absurd.
I was driving through Beverly Hills yesterday and saw a Sony/Honda showroom with Afeela all over the place.
What really annoys me is that due to incompetent leadership, or "leadership", they waste money on senseless efforts that result in the closing of extremely talented teams like Bluepoint.
Seriously....Sony needs to reorganize itself and stop this constant nonsense.
is everything playstation does this generation just one practical joke after the other?
More wasted money by Sony. Mental.
@get2sammyb There's a difference between PlayStation integration and PlayStation 5 Integration.
Afeela great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror at a lack of first party output, studio closures, and nonsensical PlayStation/automobile crossovers and were suddenly silenced…by a bungling moron named Hermen Hulst.
@evasdf This was a Sony Group project not a PlayStation project. I doubt PlayStation were much involved directly compared to the audio, display and camera guys for example.
Sony Mobility were the division heading this with Honda
@spcspc I think what we're seeing is Sony reorganising themselves.
A bit of a reset back to what works seems to be underway (although in this case I think market conditions were the cause).
Hopefully they dont become too afraid of taking risks...
@get2sammyb The whole thing never felt like more than a concept car to me. How would you insure something with that many things distracting the driver?
Again, why is Sony doing ridiculous ***** like this instead of focusing on the actual point of playstation - gaming
That thumbnail gave me a legit LOL. Thanks for that.
@Carnage it depends on the area. In my state EVs are plentiful because there is a ton of infrastructure. For the middle of the country, not so much
@ItsAlwaysSunnyyy not a PlayStation led project. Just uses existing PlayStation tech.
Sony running out of games to cancel and devs to shut down I guess.
Maybe they'll release a Wolverine trailer later or tomorrow so we xan all ooh and aah.
They just weren't Afeelaing it any more
I don't have Afeelabout thus car..
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