SHM Afeela 1

To grab headlines like a Jaguar Type 00, or melt into a torrent of content as the SHM Afeela 1 — what’s a trad brand to do? 

Sony Honda Mobility is an amalgam of two brands that, for decades, dominated market segments at the very intersection of analog and digital. 

In the case of Sony, I could go on forever. Sony was built on digital cameras with physical shutters and interchangeable lenses, just as it mastered digital gaming and the physical controls to operate them. 

Honda is officially still Honda Motor Company. The same motor company that built generations of Asimo and gave us the world’s first in-car navigation computer in 1981 — it didn’t use GPS and was a factory option — the Honda Electro Gyrocator.

When these Japanese titans ruled, it was like this: the human, the machine, the interface.

Today, after the world’s automakers spent generations investing in Chinese manufacturing, while the world’s tech companies increasingly invested into Chinese manufacturing — both happily selling to increasingly wealthy and highly discerning Chinese consumers — it is now like this: 

The human, the machine interface.

'The human, the machine interface' is distinct from the technical term of HMI, Human-Machine Interface — HMI covers keypads to touchscreens, but is only ever a part of the whole machine. 

The human, the machine interface is where our machines and interfaces become one and the same. The Tesla ecosystem, now NIO, Xiaomi, BYD and others, are so deeply integrated across platforms that the cars themselves inevitably, deliberately, become less important.

An extra ‘the’ is for the ecosystem that binds these interfaces with machines.

Legacy Auto and Legacy Audio/Visual have mastered HMI, but have not yet figured out how to make machine interfaces for humans.

Enter the Afeela 1. Starting from $89,900, “40 sensors”, and an EPA estimated range of up to 300 miles. 

(On sale in a year or so.)

((On-sale date, price, or trim? When I clicked on ‘Reserve’, it said: “An error has occurred. Try again, and if the problem continues, try again later.”))

How quickly the world moves. 

When the lux Lucid Air, a brand-new car from a brand-new automaker launched in 2021 as a 2022 model, the car had at least 933 horsepower, a range of at least 451 miles, and cost at least $169,000.

That same Lucid Dream Edition, with that same performance, is now a used car for around $90,000.

I’ll take the slightly worn in interior and professional-grade EV technology over an electric car that wants to be my companion, thanks.

Here, I worry about gimmicky features such as a front-mounted screen. The rear seat screens, only for top trim models. A “personal agent” that uses AI in order to naturally converse with the driver.

While I appreciate the novel approach of giving space on YouTube to the project’s suppliers, co-collaborators, and charter cities (such as the cities of Fremont and Torrance, California), what will these talking heads do to delight the buyer of a $90,000 EV?

Go to the car’s website, and you’ll be greeted with marketing taglines too awkwardly self-aware to be AI-generated:

“AFEELA: a new generation of mobility pulsing with intelligence.

It's an unparalleled partner that keeps you company, learns your habits, and evolves alongside you.

It's an affinity that evokes emotion from the very beginning and becomes more personalized as it grows with you.

Innovative ADAS* and a superior entertainment space,

every moment of mobility experience is elevated to new heights of emotional and seamless experiences.

Welcome to the dawn of the next era.

Intelligent mobility, toward a future unlocked by AFEELA.”

Afeela 1 touches a conspiratorial nerve in me that could imagine Honda developed a Tesla Model S competitor in the late 2010s, and it (the vehicle, concept, or employees) marinated within development hell until Sony could provide the final piece of the puzzle / plausible deniability.

Then, as new EVs launched, driving down the cost of batteries and motors, I can imagine that teams within Honda would re-run the numbers and conclude, time and time again, to kick the task of building a competitive EV farther down the line.

Crazy? So why are there both analog side mirrors outside the car and side camera displays inside it?

Or did Sony, wary of Apple and Dyson’s much hyped EV projects (to say nothing of the giant Xiaomi), cobble together its own plans — as only Sony can do — and deliberately target the smallest slice of a market that it will compete in, half-heartedly, for a decade before unceremoniously pulling the plug.

(I loved my Sony mobile phone, can you tell…?)

Make no mistake, I am not talking specifically here about the priority or execution of the analog and digital portions of the Afeela 1.

Maybe, frustratingly, the car is a total treat and strikes the perfect balance between old and new tech.

I am, however, talking about how when generational money-making enterprises face the challenge of evolving a core business or dying, many die. And when money-making enterprises enter into joint partnerships?

This is literally why we have so many ‘weird cars’ to talk about. 

Along the way, automakers have a talent for invent their own hurdles, such as failing to execute a user-friendly website, shipping a car too soon, or mandating pricing that is out of step with reality.

I talk about them in memorial, because most have died. 

On its debut, I predict that AFEELA 1 will be the most car-like mobility device ever conceived of.

Then, its story will get even weirder, I’m sure of it.