Consumer electronics company Sony and carmaker Honda have combined their expertise to produce a prototype electric car that was unveiled at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show.
Launching under Sony Honda Mobility’s newly launched car brand Afeela, the electric sedan was designed to prioritize entertainment and interaction.
It has interfaces and screens designed by Epic Games for movies, games and “infotainment” placed both inside and outside the car.
Drivers can also enjoy these conveniences behind the wheel as the car enables autonomous driving, controlled by a range of 45 different sensors and cameras.
Sony and Honda unveiled the Afeela EV at CES this week
These sensors will also allow drivers to personalize Afeela’s cockpit based on their biometrics, the companies have suggested, by adjusting the position of the seat, steering wheel and surround sound to their exact height.
“We want to think outside the box to rethink the underlying philosophy of vehicle design,” said Yasuhide Mizuno, CEO of Sony Honda Mobility, in a presentation at CES.
“In addition to movies, games and music, we envision a new in-cabin experience by leveraging our expertise in UX and UI technologies.”
An outer screen nestles between the headlights
As a result, the all-wheel-drive electric vehicle (EV) would effectively function as a “moving entertainment space,” Mizuno explained.
This starts on the outside with a narrow screen known as the “Media Bar” nestled between the car’s headlights, displaying the car’s logo instead of a physical emblem.
The screen could also be used to get other important information like the EV’s charge status, Sony Honda Mobility has suggested.
The electric car has all-wheel drive
The company likens Afeela’s sinuous exterior to that of a spaceship, complete with glass roof and self-opening doors.
In contrast, the interior of the car is almost entirely white and designed to “envelop the occupants in a soft cocoon”.
Reducing the cockpit to its essential components helps minimize distraction and focuses on the vehicle’s entertainment offerings. Even the steering wheel is cut in half to form a semicircle and not obscure the panoramic screen that wraps the entire front of the car.
Rolls-Royce unveils its first all-electric Spectre
The rear of the car is served by two dedicated large screens, complete with surround sound for each seat.
In addition to movies and games, the car’s various screens will also display Augmented Reality (AR) driver assistance graphics developed with Unreal Engine – the gaming engine from American game developer Epic Games – as introduced in 2020 in General Motors’ Hummer EV .
“Modern vehicle technology has a lot of potential to improve the driving and passenger experience with sensors, active safety systems and more,” said Kim Liberi, Chief Technology Officer of Epic Games.
A panoramic “infotainment” screen surrounds the cockpit
“And the most natural way to visualize such data is through intuitive, interactive photorealistic augmentation – exactly what our game engine was designed for,” he added.
By combining Sony’s sensors and Honda’s driving safety expertise, the companies hope to develop the autonomous and assisted driving system for Afeela “at the highest level in the world.”
According to the companies, this system will have a level three self-driving capability, meaning the car will be autonomous under certain conditions and allow drivers to use smartphones or watch movies along the way.
The steering wheel has the shape of a semicircle
All of Afeela’s systems are powered by dedicated software, which Sony says is continuously updated on a subscription model basis.
Overall, the car’s electronic control unit will have a maximum computing power of 800 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
To enable all of the high-performance computing required for these various tasks, Afeela is working with telecom company Qualcomm to integrate its digital Snapdragon chassis into the design.
The car has a glass roof that gives a view of the outside
The result is a “software-defined vehicle” that is connected to the cloud “100 percent of the time,” according to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon.
“Companies can now talk to customers in real time every day, bring personalized experiences, new services, entertainment, and then of course safety and autonomy,” he said.
Honda and Sony are now working on developing a production model of the prototype, which will go on sale in 2025 and be delivered the following spring.
Afeela is an evolution of Sony’s Vision-S concept sedan, which the company unveiled at CES 2020.
The car company Rolls-Royce also recently presented its first all-electric car, the Specter Coupé.
CES 2023 will be held in Las Vegas from January 5th to 8th, 2023. For an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world, see the Dezeen Events Guide.