Sony and Honda, who last year announced a joint venture to develop and manufacture electric cars, have revealed the name of their new car brand. It will be called Afeela.
At a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show, Sony Honda Mobility CEO Yasuhide Mizuno unveiled a prototype of the company’s first car that looked like a mid-size sedan, but he revealed few details about it. The car will be available to order and even purchase in 2025, he said, but the first deliveries of the car won’t take place in North America until 2026, he said. The car will be produced at one of Honda’s plants.
“At the heart of this mobility experience is the word ‘feeling,'” Mizuno said, explaining that the focus will be on feeling and interacting with people.
The car will have safety and driver assistance systems from Honda, along with capture and interactive features from Sony, Mizuno said. In developing the car, emphasis was placed on software and user interface technology as much as on dynamics and driving performance, he said.
Above the car’s front bumper is a narrow external display that the company calls a media bar. This will allow the car to display information and interact with people outside the car, Mizuno said.
Inside, the company is working with Unreal Engine graphics technology from Epic Games, the company that makes Fortnite, to design interfaces for the car. Unreal Engine technology has also been used by other car brands, including General Motors, which used the technology in the Hummer EV. The car will come with a wealth of entertainment options, he said.
Mizuno also boasts 45 cameras and sensors inside and outside the car, some of which are used to detect the driver’s condition to ensure alertness and safety.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
Add Comment