Sony and Honda will sell their electric car, ‘AFEELA,’ in 2026
For the fourth year in a row, Sony brought its electric car prototype to CES to show it off to a global audience. But this year we finally got what we’ve wanted all along: a production date. We also got a name: “AFEELA.”
According to Sony’s presentation, the car will start US preorders in the first half of 2025, and the first shipment will be delivered to North American customers in spring 2026.
In terms of specs, we didn’t hear a whole lot new this year. Presumably it will have the same or similar specs as were announced originally – 400kW (536hp) dual-motor all-wheel-drive, 0-100km/h (0-62mph) in 4.8 seconds, and a top speed of 240km/h (149mph). We still have no information on price or battery size.
Sony highlighted its electronics expertise by focusing on the car’s sensing and infotainment abilities. The vehicle will have 45 sensors for autonomous driving (up from 40 in last year’s presentation) and will include advanced entertainment options within the car.
Sony thinks that its entertainment and software expertise will allow it to provide a better in-car connected experience than traditional automakers. It plans to have continually updated software in the AFEELA, something that many automakers have promised but have been slow to deliver.
Gaming in cars has been a bit of a trend in recent weeks, with Tesla rolling out Steam support (turning cars into $100,000 gaming computers), NVIDIA announcing GeForce NOW cloud gaming for cars, and now Sony, a company known for its PlayStation products, pushing forward with its electric car program.
Sony will partner with Qualcomm for its in-car experience, with a platform Qualcomm is calling the “Snapdragon digital chassis.”
Since last year’s show, Sony also partnered with Honda to form Sony Honda Mobility, Inc. Interestingly, Sony got top billing in the partnership, rather than the established automaker.
This partnership helps remove one of the roadblocks to getting a car on the road, which is that it’s really hard to build and distribute cars. Honda has experience with that, and Sony has experience with software and electronics, so the two can certainly benefit each other in this venture. And hopefully Sony can influence Honda to move quicker than it has on EVs.
Missing from the show this year was Sony’s SUV variant, which it showed off last year. That said, Sony referred to AFEELA as a “new brand” today, rather than as an individual car, so presumably it could expand to encompass an SUV variant at some point.
Electrek’s Take
Well, I’ll be darned, a production date. This is really happening.
When Sony originally surprised everyone with a concept EV in 2020, we thought it was a bit crazy that everyone seemed to be showing off concept EVs now. We’ve seen lots of concept EVs over the years, with varying levels of seriousness.
Sony’s could have been another one of the less-serious ones… but it wasn’t. It looked relatively refined and reasonable and didn’t make as many outlandish claims as some others might have.
At the time, we thought there was actually a decent chance this might happen, and each year since then, Sony has inched a step closer to actually releasing this car. But it was never completely certain until now, even last year we had to hedge our title.
But now we have a production date, and even that one is reasonable. Unlike some other companies that have a single prototype and yet claim they will deliver cars at scale within a year or two, Sony has been showing this prototype since 2020 now, even starting road testing that year, which means it has been working on it since at least 2019. If it hits the road in 2026, then it will have taken seven years from blank sheet to production – which just about fits the average for the automotive industry.
And while we’d like to see every EV sooner, 2026 is still ahead of the timelines for other automative laggards. Including Sony’s countrymen at Toyota, who think moving to a 50% EV mix by 2030 is a “long shot.”
As a person who has consistently criticized automakers for not moving quickly enough on EVs, or for making outlandish claims, and specifically criticized Japanese automakers for their intransigence on EVs, Sony’s vehicle program actually seems refreshingly mature. It seems to be moving at the right pace, it’s going all-electric, and it’s making a vehicle that seems realistic and doesn’t promise too much.
So while I started watching this press conference with the sense of “oh great, we get to see the same Sony prototype again,” I came out of it once again surprised in the positive at what Sony had up its sleeve.
What do you think of the AFEELA? Do you like the name? Do you think Sony has what it takes? Let us know in the comments below.
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According to a Tesla Semi customer, the electric truck program is suffering more delays and a price increase that is described as “dramatic.”
Tesla Semi has seen many delays, more than any other vehicle program at Tesla.
It was initially unveiled in 2017, and CEO Elon Musk claimed that it would go into production in 2019.
In late 2022, Tesla held an event where it unveiled the “production version” of the Tesla Semi and delivered the first few units to a “customer-partner”: PepsiCo.
More than 3 years later, the vehicle never went into volume production. Instead, Tesla only ran a very low volume pilot production at a factory in Nevada and only delivered a few dozen trucks to customers as part of test programs.
But Tesla promised that things would finally happen for the Tesla Semi this year.
Tesla has been building a new high-volume production factory specifically for the Tesla Semi program in a new building next to Gigafactory Nevada.
The goal was to start production in 2025, start customer deliveries, and ramp up to 50,000 trucks yearly.
Now, Ryder, a large transportation company and early customer-partner in Tesla’s semi truck program, is talking about further delays. The company also refers to a significant price increase.
California’s Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee (MSRC) awarded Ryder funding for a project to deploy Tesla Semi trucks and Megachargers at two of its facilities in the state.
Ryder had previously asked for extensions amid the delays in the Tesla Semi program.
In a new letter sent to MSRC last week and obtained by Electrek, Ryder asked the agency for another 28-month delay. The letter references delays in “Tesla product design, vehicle production” and it mentions “dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics”:
This extension is needed due to delays in Tesla product design, vehicle production and dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics. These delays have caused us to reevaluate the current Ryder fleet in the area.
The logistics company now says it plans to “deploy 18 Tesla Semi vehicles by June 2026.”
The reference to “dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics” points to a significant price increase for the Tesla Semi, which further communication with MSRC confirms.
In the agenda of a meeting to discuss the extension and changes to the project yesterday, MSRC confirms that the project went from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks while the project commitment is not changing:
Ryder has indicated that their electric tractor manufacturer partner, Tesla, has experienced continued delays in product design and production. There have also been dramatic changes to the product economics. Ryder requests to reduce the number of vehicles from 42 to 18, stating that this would maintain their $7.5 million private match commitment.
In addition to the electric trucks, the project originally involved installing two integrated power centers and four Tesla Megachargers, split between two locations. Ryder is also looking to now install 3 Megachargers per location for a total of 6 instead of 4.
The project changes also mention that “Ryder states that Tesla now requires 600kW chargers rather than the 750kW units originally engineered.”
Tesla Semi Price
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2023. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
New diesel-powered Class 8 semi trucks in the US today often range between $150,000 and $220,000.
The combination of a reasonable purchase price and low operation costs, thanks to cheaper electric rates than diesel, made the Tesla Semi a potentially revolutionary product to reduce the overall costs of operation in trucking while reducing emissions.
However, Ryder now points to a “dramatic” price increase for the Tesla Semi.
What is the cost of a Tesla Semi electric truck now?
Electrek’s Take
As I have often stated, Tesla Semi is the vehicle program I am most excited about at Tesla right now.
If Tesla can produce class 8 trucks capable of moving cargo of similar weight as diesel trucks over 500 miles on a single charge in high volume at a reasonable price point, they have a revolutionary product on their hands.
But the reasonable price part is now being questioned.
After reading the communications between Ryder and MSRC, while not clear, it looks like the program could be interpreted as MSRC covering the costs of installing the charging stations while Ryder committed $7.5 million to buying the trucks.
The math makes sense for the original funding request since $7.5 million divided by 42 trucks results in around $180,000 per truck — what Tesla first quoted for the 500-mile Tesla Semi truck.
Now, with just 18 trucks, it would point to a price of $415,000 per Tesla Semi truck. It’s possible that some of Ryder’s commitment could also go to an increase in Megacharger prices – either per charger or due to the two additional chargers. MSRC said that they don’t give more money when prices go up after an extension.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the 500-mile Tesla Semi ends up costing $350,000 to $400,000.
If that’s the case, Tesla Semi is impressive, but it won’t be the revolutionary product that will change the trucking industry.
It will need to be closer to $250,000-$300,000 to have a significant impact, which is not impossible with higher-volume production but would be difficult.
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