Enlarge / Sony Honda Mobility will start taking orders for its AFEELA EV next year. (credit: Peter Nelson)

We're living through a period of radically shifting automotive technology. Companies are working on increasing electric vehicle range and redefining our concept of reenergizing . They're also gradually refining driver assistance technology and figuring out how to make vehicles an extension of their drivers.

Sony Honda Mobility's (SHM) main aim with its AFEELA luxury-tier sedan concept is to put the emphasis on the latter. The dynamic duo's website is filled with marketing buzzwords, but what is the concept actually like in person?

Recently, I was invited by SHM to check out AFEELA firsthand. It's still very much a prototype, so certain key information like price, range, and charging times weren't disclosed. But it was still worthwhile to see how these two Japanese institutions put their know-how into this spacious sedan.

Enlarge / Sony's automotive ambitions crystallized at CES 2023 with the debut of Afeela, a new mobility brand being developed together with Honda. (credit: Sony)

One of the more intriguing stories to have emerged from the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas over the past few years has been Sony's electric vehicle. The Japanese tech giant stunned people in 2020 when it debuted the Vision-S, a handsome EV designed to showcase Sony's sensors and camera tech on the outside and its entertainment portfolio on the inside.

The following year brought more developed prototypes of the Vision-S into view; then, in 2022, it took an SUV version to CES as well. At that time Sony told the media it was exploring commercial possibilities for a Sony EV, and last March it announced a strategic alliance with Honda, with the latter providing vehicle body engineering and after-sales support, and Sony providing the electronics, sensors, networking, telecom, and infotainment.

For CES 2023, Sony's automotive ambitions have become a lot clearer. Sony Honda Mobility, the joint venture, is launching a brand called Afeela, which it says is because "feel" is "at the center of the mobility experience," as people feel "mobility as an intelligent entity" and mobility feels "people and society using sensing and network IT technologies."