Aphelathe joint venture electric vehicle (EV) brand between Sony and Honda, has unveiled its second model at CES and, as expected, it is an SUV.
Although officially known as the 2026 Afeela Prototype, it appears to be close to being ready for production, although the SUV won’t go on sale in the US until 2028.
The company has not revealed any other details about the car except that it will be more spacious than the Afeela 1 Liftback disguised as a sedan.
Even though the SUV’s exterior doesn’t have the same trim as the sedan, both are clearly the work of the same design team.
It is likely that the two vehicles share the same platform, meaning the SUV could feature the same powertrain as the sedan, which features a dual motor system with a total output of 360kW. This is paired with a 91 kWh battery that is said to deliver a range of 483 km according to the US EPA standard and supports DC fast charging of up to 150 kW.
The Afeela 1 is 4.91m long, 1.9m wide, 1.46m high and has a wheelbase of 3.0m. There is a minimalist interior with two screens spanning the entire width of the dashboard. It is also available with a combination of screens and camera in place of the traditional exterior mirrors, as well as with screens mounted on the front seatbacks.
A Level 2+ autonomous driving assistance system uses 40 sensors, including 18 cameras, 12 ultrasound units, nine radar devices and a LiDAR.
Sony-Honda Mobility hasn’t provided any photos of the prototype’s interior, but the windows haven’t been completely blacked out either. From some exterior shots, we can see that the prototype appears to have a dashboard lifted from the Afeela 1 sedan.
Interestingly, the Afeela 1 is only offered in three colors: white, blue-tinted silver and black. In fact, the base variant of Origin will only be available in black.
The 2026 Prototype shared the stage in Vegas with a pre-production version of the Afeela 1 sedan built by Honda at its Ohio factory. Pre-orders for the sedan have begun, but first deliveries of the high-end Signature model won’t begin until late 2026, with the entry-level Origin trim expected to be available sometime in 2027.
Due to pricing, the Afeela 1 will likely be sold in small quantities. The base price of the Origin is US$89,900 (A$133,000), while the higher-spec Signature is priced at US$102,900 (A$153,000).
By comparison, in the US, the slow-selling Lucid Air starts at US$70,900 (A$105,000) for the base 321kW rear-wheel-drive model and goes up to US$249,000 (A$369,000), while the all-wheel-drive 290kW BMW i5 xDrive50 starts at US$70,100 (A$104,000). starts.
Sony dipped its toe into the automotive world for the first time with the Vision S sedan concept at CES 2020, when the Tesla Model 3 was on the rise and the accompanying Model Y SUV was nearing production.
The company then released the Vision-S 02 SUV concept in 2021 and signed a partnership agreement with Honda in 2022. The Afeela 1, slated for production, was unveiled at CES last year.
