Sony and Honda have canceled their Afeela electric car project just months before its planned launch.
The joint electric-vehicle venture between Sony and Honda has effectively come to an end. Their partnership company, Sony Honda Mobility, announced it is halting development of the Afeela 1 — only months before the model was expected to fully enter the market.
The decision follows a series of setbacks for Honda. Earlier, the Japanese automaker revealed it was scrapping plans for its upcoming 0 Series electric-vehicle lineup and acknowledged it could face losses of up to about $16.5 billion in the coming years as it reassesses its electrification strategy.
Although the Afeela 1 had technically already entered the sales phase — preorders opened for customers in California in January 2025 — the project is now officially canceled. Buyers who placed deposits will receive full refunds, and development of the next model in the lineup, a planned crossover SUV, has also been stopped.
In an official statement, Sony Honda Mobility said that since the company was founded in September 2022, its goal had been to develop high-tech mobility solutions by combining the engineering experience of Honda with Sony’s expertise in electronics, software, and entertainment technologies.
However, Honda’s updated electrification strategy, announced on March 12, 2026, significantly changed the resources and technology the joint venture expected to rely on. As a result, the company determined it could no longer bring the project to market in its original form.
Sony Honda Mobility emphasized that discussions about future collaboration between the two companies are ongoing. That means the broader partnership between Sony and Honda could still evolve, even though the fate of the Afeela 1 itself has now been decided.
The collapse of the Afeela project highlights how volatile the electric-vehicle sector remains. Even major global companies are being forced to rethink their plans and cancel projects late in development when market conditions, technology priorities, or financial realities shift.