Sony & Honda Pull The Plug On Afeela

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Afeela — the $90,000 battery electric PlayStation on wheels from Sony and Honda — is dead. The car was perhaps an attempt by Sony to match whatever Apple was doing with its stillborn Project Titan that burned through a billion dollars over 10 years before Apple threw in the towel. Whatever the intended market for the Afeela might have been — assuming there was one at all — those potential customers will now have to look elsewhere for their automotive jollies.

Honda and Sony formed an entirely separate company, Sony Honda Mobility, to develop the car. SHM told Business Insider on Wednesday it is continuing “to discuss the path forward with its parent companies on the future of SHM.” That sounds like wishful thinking to us. There was no discernible market for the car in the first place. We suspect it was an ego thing with Sony management, and Honda got dragged into it because it knows a thing or two about manufacturing automobiles.

What Were They Thinking?

The announcement came as no surprise to industry analysts. Seth Goldstein, a senior equity strategist and EV industry specialist at Morningstar, told Business Insider: “This aligns with Honda rethinking its EV plans, especially in the US market.” He said Honda is probably shifting toward building more hybrids while it reassesses how to build profitable EVs without relying on government incentives. The only electric Honda remaining in the US is the Prologue, which is built on the GM Ultium platform in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

The only surprise and question here is why now? Honda showcased the Afeela at the this year’s CES show in Las Vegas. We know that things happen quickly, but that show was less than three months ago. Maybe SMH had already paid for display space at CES and couldn’t get a refund?

Sony did add the car to Turismo 7, its car racing game for PlayStation. It appears that will now be the only way anyone can ever “drive” the Afeela. The actual car was scheduled to be available to customers later this year and was expected to come equipped with a number of screens, including one on the hood. The front-facing “Media Bar” could be customized with messages such as birthday wishes for the owner. Who wouldn’t pay $90,000 for that?

Pulling the plug on a vehicle so close to launch is “definitely not the industry norm,” Adam Bernard, a former director of competitive intelligence at General Motors, told Business Insider. “A last-minute pull is very unusual,” he said.

Panic In The Car Business

BI writes that the cancellation highlights a growing divide in how automakers are approaching the US EV market. Toyota — long seen as a laggard in fully electric vehicles — has recently accelerated its EV plans, underscoring how differently the longtime rivals are navigating the transition after both delayed for years. Goldstein said Toyota’s experience with hybrid systems and battery development may make it easier to adapt its lineup, while Honda now faces a more fundamental reset.

Several analysts told BI that they didn’t think of the cancellation as the end of Honda’s EV ambitions. “My guess is that they may revisit their plans and perhaps produce something lower in cost toward the end of the decade,” Sam Abuelsamid, an auto industry analyst at Telemetry, told Business Insider. He added that while Afeela was slated for production in Ohio, Honda is likely to repurpose that capacity for other vehicles rather than leave it idle. With insights like that, you can see why he is considered a keen observer of industry trends.

A Political Decision

It is uncertain where Sony Honda Mobility fits into Honda’s plans for the future. A Honda spokesperson said the company had “no insight into the announcement,” referring questions to the joint venture.

It is widely believed that the death of the Afeela project is tied directly to Honda’s recent decision to cancel all three EV models it was developing  for the North American market, a move that will involve the write-off of up to $15.7 billion of EV investments.

While Rubugnicans are cheering what they see as the death of the electric car and all that woke nonsense about protecting the environment, it should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer — even the MAGA acolytes — that those funds would have been invested in America, creating jobs for American workers. My old Irish grandmother would call it cutting off your nose to spite your face. You can always tell a braindead Repugnican but you can’t tell him much.

“Just last month Honda had warned of surging expenses related to its EV business, but the latest announcement lays bare the immense cost of being caught out by slowing demand for new-energy cars. Its estimate puts it alongside Stellantis NV, which is taking more than €22 billion ($25 billion) in charges mainly linked to reversing course in its EV strategy, and Ford Motor’s $19.5 billion hit from its overhaul,” Japan Times reported when the announcement was made.

Tariffs

A big part of the decision to cancel its three new electric cars was the cockamamie tariffs instituted by the Jackass In Chief that are making everything sold in America more expensive, from finished goods like automobiles to pharmaceuticals and food. Thank you, Dear Leader. We sure do enjoy being impoverished while you and your buddies gorge yourselves at the public trough.

My colleague Jennifer Sensiba wrote recently that Honda at least had the courage to say exactly what was behind its decision — tariffs — and lay the blame directly at the door of the Head Idiot. She wrote, “When a major automaker decides to eat a nearly $16 billion loss and scrap three highly anticipated electric vehicles, you usually expect a heavily spun corporate statement.

“We’re used to hearing vague excuses about shifting macroeconomic headwinds or realigning synergies. When other companies did this, they usually blamed demand or even car buyers, and weren’t afraid to make it look like an EV program died of natural causes.

“But when Honda announced it was pulling the plug on the 0 Series SUV, the 0 Series Saloon, and the Acura RSX for the US market, the company did something entirely different. It pointed a finger directly at unpredictable US politicians and idiotic policy shifts.

“Sure, it’s still buried in later paragraphs, but the company very clearly mentions tariffs hurting the company’s sales as a whole and mentions that EV sales growth slowed because fossil fuel regulations and tax credits were reduced.

“That’s as direct as it gets in a sanitized corporate press release. A massive multinational corporation just told the world that the rollback of emissions standards and the gutting of federal tax credits directly killed three major vehicle programs and cost them $15.8 billion. GM, Ford, and Stellantis were afraid to do that, but Honda wasn’t afraid to tell investors and the public the truth.”

We think Jennifer is spot on with her analysis. This is on you, MAGA. You own it and you will be the ones who will be condemned for your slavish fealty to an ideology that is leading America back in time to the era of the Robber Barons. You will reap the whirlwind. Buckle up!