Sony Honda Mobility Is Also Working On An Afeela Crossover, Because Of Course
This week Sony Honda Mobility unveiled its latest Afeela prototype at CES, featuring a number of design changes and new details that bring it even closer to production. The joint venture, which calls itself SHM for short, has said that the Afeela sedan will go on sale in 2026 and be built at a new facility in Ohio. In a world where SUVs rule the streets it’s pretty cool to see a new brand launching with a sedan, but don’t fret! SHM is also working on an Afeela crossover, and it was even teased in one of the company’s new product videos.
Honda and Sony’s Electric Car Concept Is Named, Um, AFEELA
The crossover can be seen at the very start of this atmospheric video, which mostly consists of beautiful, slightly gloomy footage of the Afeela sedan driving along some gorgeous scenic roads. In the clip in question, the driver is walking up to the Afeela in his modern garage, and parked in the shadows next to it is what sure looks like an SUV. (I’ve boosted the image’s brightness above so you can see it better.)
AFEELA | Concept Movie 2024
We can see that the Afeela SUV has a full-width light bar and chiseled rear bumper design just like the sedan, and the rear glass is nicely raked. There could be an active rear spoiler like on the sedan, and the lower diffuser is more prominent. Overall it doesn’t seem to be that much bigger in length than the Afeela sedan, but the crossover is definitely quite a bit taller. Expect the front end styling to be similarly close to the sedan’s. The Afeela crossover should also have the same screen-filled interior layout.
It’s not exactly news that SHM is working on a crossover; this is just the first time we’ve seen it in this latest iteration. Before it joined forces with Honda in the spring of 2022, Sony unveiled the Vision-S 02 concept at CES that January, a crossover wearing the same styling as Sony’s initial Vision-S 01 concept from 2020. The first Afeela sedan concept was shown at CES last year, at which the chairman and CEO told Autocar that the company was already working on its next two models:
“We’re thinking about the second and third models. We need a line-up. Not only one unit, finish,” said Yasuhide Mizuno, chairman and CEO of Sony Honda Mobility, following the launch of the brand at CES.
“An SUV is the usual [next step], but maybe [an] MPV,” he said. “It depends on autonomous driving development. If we reach level three, level four, then perhaps everybody needs a ‘party car’.”
“If we go for five years with just one model, everyone will forget Sony Honda Mobility. ‘Sony Honda Mobility? Very sad story,’ they will say,” Mizuno joked.
The Afeela sedan will ride on Honda’s upcoming e:Architecture platform, which will also underpin the production version of the Honda 0 Series Saloon concept that was revealed this week. SHM has said the Afeela sedan will have a 91-kWh battery pack with 150-kW charging capability and two electric motors that put out 483 horsepower; the SUV will likely feature the same powertrain.
SHM has said it will start taking orders for the Afeela sedan in the U.S. next year ahead of its 2026 delivery start date. That means we should see the production sedan make a full debut at some point in 2025, if not sooner. While the Afeela crossover will probably follow the sedan by a year or two in terms of production, it should be revealed within the next year or so as well.
