Honda Terminates its AFEELA Electric Car Joint Venture with Sony
Afeela is a joint venture between Honda Motors and Sony having forged the partnership in September 2022 to produce and sell high-value electric cars under the new AFEELA brand, positioning them as “mobility tech”.
And as recently as 16th March the Sony Honda Mobility joint venture announced the “Grand Opening of AFEELA Studio & Delivery Hub Torrance” provisioned for the 21st March.
But troubles were brewing a few days before as we brought you news that Honda was cancelling its 0 Series Project in the U.S. with immediate effect.
So it comes with some surprise that Honda and Sony have issued a joint statement today stating that Honda will “discontinue the development and launch of its first model, AFEELA1, and its second model” bringing an end to Honda’s in-house electric car programs in the Western hemisphere.
Honda said that it’s reassessing its automobile electrification strategy following its first loss in over half a century recently.
Honda is now prioritising hybrid technology over full battery electric technology having scaled back all of its electric vehicle programs.
In the U.S. the Prologue exits as a sole EV offering from Honda, and in the U.K. and Europe, Honda offers the troubled e:Ny1 as the only electric car option.
However, it’s in its home market of Japan where Honda have formed an alliance with Dongfeng of China that sees Chinese made electric cars built on Honda’s e:N architecture F platform and shipped to Japan - a first for the country. These are intended only for the Japanese market and Honda has no plans to export these offerings to the rest of the world.
With the rise of electric mobility and many countries now fully committed to a full EV transition sometime next decade, this announcement by Honda and Sony is extremely disappointing.
But there is a slither of hope as Honda and Sony have committed to continuing with their work together focusing on mid to long term positions of future mobility. I note they have not mentioned the word “electric’ in that statement.
Let’s hope Honda takes time out to rebuild and relaunch an EV strategy at some point in the future, but I fear if they leave it too late, the market will be saturated with brilliant EVs who would have moved the game on without Honda.
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About the Author
Graeme Cobb is a lifelong car enthusiast with a passion for writing about cars, EVs, industry updates and more.
You can find Graeme on 𝕏 at @graeme_cobb or YouTube @REV-EV.