Afeela Will Woo EV Shoppers, but Not All at Once

Yahoo

26-02-2025

The Afeela brand opens a studio in a Los Angeles mall, welcoming EV shoppers until August 1 of this year.
The not-inexpensive electric sedan promises a range of about 300 miles, but the main event will be the Sony tech inside offering movies, games, and music.
The electric sedan will be available only in California, at least initially.
Sony and Honda's Afeela experiment is inching steadily toward reality, with plans to begin deliveries in California sometime by the middle of 2026.
But finding out firsthand just what Afeela plans to offer hasn't been easy for prospective EV buyers, perhaps even those who've already bought an EV online sight unseen.
The newly-formed brand has now opened what it calls a Studio in LA's Westfield Century City mall, and it's the first time that its inaugural sedan, dubbed Afeela 1, and all the Sony tech inside have been shown to the public in the city.
This will be the first real opportunity for the new brand to convince buyers to spend close to six figures on a body style that has been represented well enough by other brands, but one that won't come with a Honda or Acura badge.
The Afeela Studio will only remain open for until August 1, with the company now accepting $200 refundable deposits for the sedan.
Needless to say, this is a rather limited and temporary footprint for a brand that plans to begin deliveries next year, even though Los Angeles is certainly a hot EV market.
Pricing for the sedan had been revealed not too long ago, with the Afeela 1 Signature wearing a $102,900 sticker, though a more affordable Afeela 1 Origin that will land in 2027 will require $89,900.
Both trims will be powered by a 91-kWh battery pack sending juice to two 241-hp motors at each axle. The company says that this setup will yield about 300 miles of range, though we won't know the official EPA numbers for some time, likely until 2026.
Perhaps more important than the pure range or horsepower numbers will be what is likely the main value proposition in sea of similarly sized and similarly-priced electric sedans.
Afeela plans to woo buyers with several screens hosting movies, games, music, as well as Sony's 360 Spatial Sound Technologies system. An ADAS system dubbed Afeela Intelligent Drive will also be on board, along with a voice-activated personal assistant, though both will require subscriptions.
Still, upon launch in 2026 Afeela, will remain a California-only experiment, in a strange way echoing another past Honda sedan that was only available in a handful of West Coast states, and one that remains largely forgotten.
The Clarity EV, which was offered for two years starting in 2017, was Honda's midsize electric offering for a short period of time, but one that had been obsolete arguably upon arrival with a range of only 80 miles.
Afeela has seen a relatively quick progression from concept to something approaching a production-ready model, so the tech and perhaps the range still promise to be relevant in 2026.
But we have to wonder just how much real-world demand in only one US state the brand will be able to generate with a six-figure electric sedan in 2026, especially given the fact that the Honda Prologue is offered on a much wider scale.
California is still the country's largest EV market, but it's difficult to picture sales volumes exceeding the mid-four-figures if the sedan stays confined to the Golden State. And the segment itself has already been showing signs of creaking under the weight of all the current choices and their price tags.
Honda isn't pinning all of its hopes on the Afeela sedan, with plans to introduce a range of EVs on its own e:Architecture platform in the coming years after borrowing GM's Ultium platform for the Honda Prologue and its Acura twin.
Will Afeela be able to set itself apart among its competitors when it arrives in 2026, or are there too many choices in this segment for it to stand out? Let us know what you think in the comments below.