Sony’s first car is finally available to pre-order but only if you live in California
- This is the AFEELA 1 car designed by Sony
- It has a range of 300km, compatible with Tesla superchargers
- For now, you can only order it if you live in California
Published on Jan 07, 2025 at 5:38 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis
Last updated on Jan 07, 2025 at 5:38 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Kate Bain
AFEELA 1, the long awaited Sony car built in partnership with Honda, is finally here.
It’s a tech-forward electric sedan with self-driving capabilities, and the range is significant.
It isn’t cheap, and customers will only receive their cars between late 2026 and 2027.
But the biggest catch is that you can only pre-order it if you live in California.
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How Sony and Honda designed AFEELA 1
Sony first teased its potential entry into the automotive world in 2022, joining the growing list of tech companies, Xiaomi and Huawei, that are now making cars.
About one year later, Sony and Honda announced their joint project and said the car would be available to pre-order starting from 2025, with deliveries in 2026 or 2027.
They kept their promise.
Dubbed AFEELA 1, stylized in all caps, this is a luxury sedan with at least 300 miles (480km) of range, and it’s fully compatible with Tesla Superchargers.
This EV is also equipped with an AI-powered brain that gives the AFEELA 1 autonomous capabilities and turns it into some sort of concierge on wheels.
They call it ‘Personal Agent’ functionality, and the idea is basically to use it the same way you’d use Amazon Alexa or Siri on iPhone.
Like Tesla did with the ‘Foundation Series’ Cybertruck, Sony/Honda came up with ‘pre-ready’ specs for the first batch of cars.
If you order the AFEELA 1, you can opt for the Origin model, or the Signature model.
In both cases, you get the AI features as standard, but with the Signature model you have bigger wheels and extra infotainment screens at the back.
The elephant(s) in the room and the biggest catch with the Sony car
The car looks nice, and the AI features sound promising, but there are three elephants in the room.
First, at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Sony showcased a feature that allows you to drive your Sony car with your Sony PlayStation controller.
It’s never really been mentioned again, so that was probably just a marketing stunt that’s (understandably) impossible to replicate on a production model.
At least for now.
The second is the price tag, and it’s a huge elephant because the price tag is really nothing to sneeze at.
The Origin costs $89,000, while the Signature will set you back $102,900.
Not that long ago, we’d have called this ‘supercar money’, but clearly that’s no longer the case.
The third elephant in the room, which is also a weird catch, is that you can of course only pre-order the car in California.
