Do you know how Sony is developing an electric car with Honda coming in 2026? Sony Honda Mobility is now allowing journalists to seriously touch and play with its Afeela prototype Big Tourism video game version of the car while sitting inside the actual car.
That’s why I went to PlayStation’s North American headquarters last week to try out an Afeela inside an Afeela and touch things we couldn’t touch before. But I got a little more than I bargained for!
Here is my 50 second practice video and a short list of new things I learned.
1) Don’t expect test drives anytime soon.
No, before you ask, they didn’t let you drive a genuine Sony Honda. I grabbed the steering wheel and pushed the pedals, but they did nothing – in-game or otherwise. “We will provide journalists with the opportunity to test drive the vehicle as soon as possible in accordance with the development schedule,” Sony Honda Mobility said in a statement through third-party spokesperson Glenn Mandel.
I’m hearing that test drives won’t arrive this year – possibly next year – but it might even be 2026 before a journalist gets behind the wheel.
2) Now there is a physical button that allows you to open the door.
Previously, there were two ways to open the door of the prototype from the outside. You can press a button on Afeela’s smartphone app or let the camera system open it for you after it recognizes your face. The latest prototype has a third method: a physical button mounted below the window that can send the same signal. I pressed it and it worked great. Sony Honda is still deciding how to verify your identity — reps couldn’t say whether it will use a key fob or some kind of digital car key like UWB to know you’re nearby.
3) Afeela will not allow the driver to see what is on the passenger’s screen.
The Afeela’s ultra-wide screen is one of its most striking features, but Sony Honda doesn’t plan to let the driver see everything while on the move. Instead, it will use some sort of privacy filter to wall-mount the passenger section of the screen so they can continue watching without distracting the driver.
“Technical specifications for mass production are yet to be decided, but we plan to install a mechanism that is invisible to the driver so that the driver can drive safely,” SHM said.
4) It probably won’t have a real PS5 inside.
I played Gran Turismo 7 on the Afeela screen, wirelessly streaming from a nearby PS5 using Sony’s PS Remote Play app. There is no actual PS5 console in the car and there are currently no plans to replace it. In January, Sony Honda Mobility president and COO Izumi Kawanishi told me that he still hadn’t decided whether the real PS5 would show up, but that SHM now “envisions remote play instead of mounting a PS5 console.”
It’s also unclear if you can use Afeela’s own steering wheel and pedals to play anything.
5) Afeela’s “personal agent” may request it you with questions.
Sony Honda signed a deal with Microsoft last year While there’s no word yet on creating a “conversational personal agent” for the car and what that means, I’m hearing that the goal is to make the car’s AI push it with questions after trying to anticipate your needs.
“We are looking at the possibility of two-way communication between people and cars, and we are also developing an interactive personal agent using the Microsoft Azure OpenAI service in collaboration with Microsoft,” wrote SHM when asked. “Depending on the user, we believe that we will be able to communicate according to the user’s preferences.”
6) There’s a good reason why Sony Honda won’t let us touch the car at CES.
I walk through it in the video, but a lot of the prototype is just a mock-up right now, not working yet. This includes luxuries like digital side mirrors and rearview mirrors, as well as common items like turn signals, sun visors, glove and storage compartments, and most parts of the touchscreen user experience.
I could scroll around the map of Las Vegas, but I couldn’t touch any pins; I was able to delete the video that was playing and drag it to the driver or passenger side of the screen with a gesture, but I couldn’t activate many other functions on the touchscreen or companion smartphone app. I’m not dinging SHM, though; Sony Honda has made it completely transparent that this is a prototype and has a few more years to figure things out.
7) Afeela doesn’t necessarily have to be a Sony ad.
Yes, the front bumper of the current prototype has a ridiculous digital billboard displaying Sony specifications. Spider-Man and Horizon Forbidden West, and lets you tune the car’s digital engine sound with sounds inspired by Sony properties, including anime streaming service Crunchyroll. But a spokesperson told me that Sony Honda is also looking to partner with non-Sony entities — and I was able to display the text I liked on the bumper screen just by typing it into the phone app.
Of course, I chose The Verge.