CARS OF THE WORLD

Electric liftback Afeela 2026.

The electric car of Sony and Honda companies has become closer to the assembly line.

Unlike many Chinese automakers, which are creating new brands and models at an incredible speed, Sony and Honda are taking a much more cautious approach.

The electric car under the joint brand Afeela, which was presented a year ago at CES 2023, is being finalized by the partners step by step and without haste.

This year, at the next Consumer Electronics Exhibition, a version of the machine close to the assembly line was presented.

The Afeela electric liftback has new bumpers and new lighting equipment. The headlights and the LED strip connecting them are now framed by a black glossy mask, which also hides a large information screen in the center of the front end.

A similar smaller display is located between the rear lights.

In the display sample, both screens displayed the brand name, but they are capable of displaying custom images and icons.

The new tail resulted in a slight increase in length by 20 mm (to 4915 mm), although the width (1900 mm), height (1460 mm) and wheelbase (3000 mm) remained unchanged.

The electric car also has rear-view mirrors, whereas last year’s prototype had cameras.

At the same time, the side rear view screens are retained in the liftback cabin. Together with the horizontal screen of the media system and electronic devices, a single digital front panel is formed.

It can display a 3D navigation map with augmented reality.

The screen can also display information about other cars, pedestrians, road signs, weather and other driving conditions.

The digital model of the environment is rendered by the latest game engine Unreal Engine 5.3, and the on-board system as a whole is open to third-party applications, games and services.

This was made possible thanks to close cooperation with gaming giant Epic Games.

And Microsoft has provided the Azure OpenAI service (ChatGPT is integrated into it), on the basis of which an on-board electronic assistant with artificial intelligence will be created: the company calls it a “personal agent.”

It will also be used as part of a proprietary autopilot, in which Vision Transformer technology is supplemented with machine learning.

More details have emerged about the technical structure of the Afeela liftback. The all-wheel drive electric vehicle is equipped with two 245 hp motors. each (490 hp in total) and a lithium-ion traction battery with a capacity of 91 kWh.

There are 150 kW DC and 11 kW AC chargers on board. The chassis has a double-wishbone front suspension and a multi-link rear suspension.

Afeela has pneumatic all-round struts and 21-inch wheels.

Finally, the gaming studio Polyphony Digital, known for the legendary Gran Turismo series of car simulators, was involved in the creation of this electric car.

Sony and Honda still have not announced at least an approximate date for the start of sales of their electric car (spring 2026 was previously mentioned), but the virtual Afeela will definitely appear in the Gran Turismo 7 game before the end of this year.

In the meantime, during a presentation at CES 2024, the partners demonstrated the ability to control the prototype using a joystick from Sony PlayStation 5.