Sony Honda Mobility, the joint venture between electronics giant Sony and automaker Honda, announced it will halt development of the Afeela line of electric vehicles following Honda’s scaleback of its electric vehicle plans.
To add some context, Honda said earlier this month that it would expect to incur a loss of up to 2.5 trillion yen (approx. C$21.66 billion), marking its first annual loss in almost 70 years as a publicly listed firm.
According to Reuters, U.S. President Donald Trump has scaled back support for EVs, while demand in Europe has been slipping and is described as “weaker than expected.” This is despite Canada’s continued push for EVs, which includes a new rebate plan and a trade deal with China that will bring some EVs to North American soil for the first time.
Reuters also notes that, for Sony, scrapping Afeela makes it the latest technology company to abandon an EV project, highlighting the difficulty in a market dominated by an already-struggling Tesla and affordable Chinese competition like BYD. One of the selling features of the Afeela EVs was a high-tech infotainment system that could support PlayStation game streaming and augmented reality features.
Sony Honda Mobility has said that Honda’s decisions left the company without a viable path to bring the Afeela models to market, as the joint venture could no longer use technologies and assets from one of the world’s largest automakers.
The company has said it will issue full refunds to customers in California who reserved the Afeela 1 and will continue discussions with Sony and Honda on next steps.
This isn’t the only model Honda has scrapped recently, as the global automaker announced the discontinuation of its Zero Series SUV and Saloon amid what it considered an “extremely challenging” situation.
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