Sony and Honda's Afeela hits the wall at full speed

It started with a dream at CES 2020 and ended with a refund email. Sony Honda Mobility has cancelled both its Afeela EVs—the $89,900 Afeela 1 sedan and an SUV concept that had just been shown off at CES 2026—pulling the plug on one of the auto industry's more ambitious, if perpetually delayed, bets. Customers who placed $200 refundable deposits will get their money back. The joint venture says it no longer has "a viable path forward."The cruelest part? The Afeela 1 was almost there. Trial production had already begun at Honda's East Liberty Auto Plant in Ohio. First deliveries to California customers were weeks away. The SUV, revealed just months ago with a 2028 launch target, barely got a moment in the sun.The killing blow came from Honda. On March 12, the automaker cancelled three US-market EVs—the Honda 0 Saloon, Honda 0 SUV, and Acura RSX—and flagged a restructuring charge of up to 2.5 trillion yen (~$15.7 billion), enough to push it to its first annual loss since going public in 1957. The Afeela was entirely dependent on Honda's proprietary EV platforms and technology. When Honda walked those back, Sony Honda Mobility was left holding nothing. Tariffs and surging Chinese EV competition were cited as the triggers—Honda's retreat is part of a broader industry reckoning that has now produced roughly $67 billion in collective writedowns across GM, Ford, Stellantis, and Honda.Here is the real tragedy of the Afeela: it was designed for a future that never arrived. In 2020, autonomous driving felt like a firmware update away, EV incentives in the US were generous, and the idea of streaming PlayStation games to your dashboard while the car drove itself was genuinely exciting. By 2026, hands-off autonomy is still a distant promise, EV tax credits have been scrapped under the Trump administration, and a $90,000 sedan from an untested brand—with no proper test drives ever offered to the public—was always going to be a punishing sell. The Afeela was, in many ways, a PS4 launched into a PS5 world.What happens to the joint venture—and the hundreds of employees across Tokyo and California who spent years building it—remains an open question. Both companies say a new direction will be announced "at the earliest possible opportunity." That is, for now, all they are offering.