Sony takes cancelling things to a whole new level by cancelling the car it was making with Honda

Afeela was unveiled in 2023 as a joint venture between Sony and Honda that, simply put, mashes up an EV with all sorts of dubious media features: “Mobility as a Creative Entertainment Space” is how the Afeela website describes it, promising “an emotional experience that is like being in a private theater immersed in sound and visuals.” Frankly I think that’s about the last thing any sane person would want when they’re hustling 2,000 kilograms of steel and electricity down a busy highway, but it doesn’t matter now because the whole thing has been scrapped.

The cancellation of the Afeela project wasn’t due to any specific issues with the car itself, but was rather “a result of Honda’s reassessment of its automobile electrification strategy announced on March 12, 2026,” Sony and Honda said in a joint statement.

That March 12 announcement saw the cancellation of three Honda EV models that had been planned for production in North America, driven by a combination of US tariff policies and easing of fossil fuel regulations, and shifts in the Asian market, including increased competitiveness from Chinese manufacturers.

The fact that Afeela was quite expensive was also no doubt a stumbling block: The base model of the Afeela 1, the first production model, came in at $90,000, while the Afeela 1 Signature clocked in at $103,000. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 (another terrible name, but 10/10 from Car and Driver), by way of comparison, starts at under $37,000.

Sony and Honda made Asplashy Afeela presentation just a month ago at CES 2026.

So that really sucks. Not that I care much about Afeela specifically, I think it’s ugly and dangerous (seriously, an overloaded media environment including external displays to distract other drivers is completely at odds with the fundamental goal of “let’s not kill anyone with our high-speed death machine today”), but electrification is the future, at least if we want to have one, and this decision demonstrates the perils of leaving that future in the hands of entities whose sole purpose is to make money now. It’s literally the “we created a lot of value for shareholders” New Yorker cartoon in action.

(It’s also ironic that the US-led deregulation of fossil fuels that helped lead to this cancellation is running absolutely headlong into the US war on Iran, which has sparked a massive energy crisis and skyrocketing gasoline prices, and shows no sign of ending anytime soon.)

Anyway, the end of Afeela doesn’t necessarily signal a split between Sony and Honda. The two companies will “continue to discuss and evaluate the future of SHM [Sony Honda Mobility], taking into account the initial purpose of the JV establishment as well as the latest EV market environment, and intend to jointly announce SHM’s future direction, mid- to long-term positioning as well as contributions to the future of mobility at the earliest possible opportunity.” Who knows, maybe they’ll bring back the NSX and pretend to drive it with a DualSense controller—no idea where you’d cram a PS5 into one of those things, though.