AFEELA Yourself
What happens when you strap a battery pack and four wheels to a PS5
What happens when you strap a battery pack and four wheels to a PS5?
Apparently, you get AFEELA. Sony and Honda’s joint venture into the EV space, and possibly the first car designed to make Fortnite feel like a native operating system. The prototype is currently parked at Westfield Century City, and it’s drawing a crowd that expected to check out a car but wound up at a tech demo.
This car isn’t just a car, it’s a rolling entertainment hub. Screens across the dash, screens for the passengers, a screen on the front bumper that recently played a trailer for Fortnite. No, seriously. At CES this year, the AFEELA’s grille became a digital billboard for video games.
It’s less a traditional vehicle and more a Shibuya Crossing on wheels—blinking, reactive, and designed to be watched as much as it’s meant to move.
The personalization baked into each passenger zone is genuinely impressive. Everyone gets their own climate, isolated audio, content, and likely a dozen more ways to engage with screens and ignore the driver. It’s Sony’s ethos turned automotive: immersion, isolation, and visual overload in glorious 4K. This isn’t a shared cabin. It’s four curated experiences mounted to a Honda skateboard chassis.
Inside, the yoke-style steering wheel is futuristic enough, though Sony and Honda haven’t confirmed whether it’s full drive-by-wire or still tethered to tradition. (A discussion with a representative on-site led me to believe there will still be a proper steering column attached.) Either way, they’re aiming for a responsive, human-centric feel—whatever that means when your dashboard has Unreal Engine powering its UI and the car can sense your emotional state.
And then there’s the hardware. Some of the sensor clusters protrude from the roofline in a way that feels more Waymo than windswept concept sketch. It’s not subtle. But maybe that’s the point. Just like exposed rivets and fat welds add raw appeal to a rat-rod, these sensor pods wear their purpose proudly. Broadcasting intelligence over aerodynamics. It’s progress as punctuation. A little brutish, a little bold, and very on-brand for a machine that’s more about signaling the future than slipping through it quietly.
That said…
When I heard the top trim would land north of $100K, I found myself quietly whispering “Lucid” like a safe word. If I’m shelling out six figures for an EV, I want more range and fewer… vibes?
Maybe it's a demographic thing? But my son, 17, also prefers the Lucid over the gamer-centric AFEELA.
So here’s a bit to love and a bit to question about this machine. Sony and Honda are signaling a future where your car isn’t just a vehicle—it’s an extension of your entertainment preferences and media habits. The downside, perhaps, is your ability to tune out everyone else in the car. Remember when road trips were about shared experiences and playlists?
Anyhow, if Apple ever gets serious about making a car, this is the bar they’ll need to clear: not range, not power, but a seamless fusion of design, ecosystem, and emotional UX. It may not be for everyone, but it’s an exciting step forward in the fusion of entertainment, tech and transportation.
AFEELA is on view now at Westfield Century City. Go take a look. There’s a Tesla and Lucid showroom there, too. Make your own comparison in the world of the dueling EVs.
