Consumer electronics company Sony and automaker Honda have combined their expertise to produce a prototype electric car, which was unveiled at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show.
The electric sedan, launched under the newly launched Afeela car brand of the Sony Honda MoƄility joint venture, was designed to prioritize entertainment and interaction.
It features interfaces developed for Epic Games and screens for movies, games and “infotainment” installed both inside and outside the car.
Drivers will be able to make use of these conveniences even when behind the wheel, as the car is set to offer autonomous driving guided by an array of 45 different sensors and cameras.
These sensors will also allow drivers to customize the Afeela cockpit based on their Ƅiometric data, the companies suggested, matching the position of the seat, steering wheel and surround sound to their exact height.
“We want to think outside the box to get back to the underlying philosophy of vehicle design,” said Yasuhide Mizuno, CEO of Sony Honda MoƄility, in a CES presentation.
As a result, the all-wheel drive electric vehicle (EV) would effectively function as a “mobile entertainment space,” Mizuno explained.
This starts on the exterior with a narrow display known as a “media Ƅar”, which sits between the car’s headlights and displays the car’s logo rather than a physical element.
The screen could also be used to get other essential information, such as the EV’s state of charge, Sony Honda MoƄility suggested.
The company likens Afeela’s sinuous exterior to that of a spaceship, complete with a glass roof and self-opening doors.
By contrast, the interior of the car is almost entirely white and designed to “embrace the occupants in a soft cocoon.”
Stripping the cabin down to its essential components helps minimize distractions and keep the emphasis on the car’s entertainment offerings. Even the steering wheel is cut in half to form a semicircle and avoid obstructing the widescreen that wraps around the entire front of the car.
The rear of the car is serviced with two of its own large screens, complete with surround sound for each seat.
Beyond movies and games, the various screens in the car will also display augmented reality (AR) driving assistance graphics powered by Unreal Engine, the game engine from American game developer Epic Games, as it debuted in the Hummer. General Motors EV in 2020.
“Modern vehicle technology has great potential to enhance the driving and passenger experience with sensors, active safety systems and much more,” said Epic Games CTO Kiм LiƄeri.
“And the most natural way to ʋvisualize such data is through intuition, the interactive rise of ๏τoreal pH – the things our game engine was built to do,” he added.
By combining Sony’s sensors and Honda’s expertise in driver safety, the companies hope to develop the “world’s highest level” autonomous and assisted driving system for Afeela.
This system will have a “level three” self-driving capability, the companies said, meaning the car is autonomous under particular conditions, allowing drivers to use smartphones or watch movies on the go.
All of Afeela’s systems will run on dedicated software, which Sony says will be continuously updated on a subscription model.
In total, the car’s electronic control unit will have a maximum computing power of 800 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
In order to accommodate all of the high-performance computing required to perform these ʋmultitasking tasks, Afeela is working with telecommunications company Qualcomм to integrate its Snapdragon digital chassis into the design.
The result is a “software-defined vehicle” that is connected to the cloud “100 percent of the time,” according to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon.
“Businesses can now talk to customers every day in real-time personalized experiences, deliver new services, entertainment, and then of course security and autonomy,” he said.
Honda and Sony are now working to develop a production model of the concept, which is scheduled to go on sale in 2025 and delivered the following spring.
Afeela is an evolution of Sony’s Vision-S concept sedan, which the company unveiled at CES in 2020.
The Rolls-Royce automobile company also recently introduced its first fully electric car, the Specter coupe.
CES 2023 will take place in Las Vegas from January 5-8, 2023. Check the Dezeen Event Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
