Sony Honda Mobility will deliver its Afeela electric cars from 2026. But the three way partnership company is already showing cool features of the brand new vehicle.
I recently got a demo of the automotive and its driving simulator at Sony's PlayStation headquarters in San Mateo, California, where I used to be in a position to see the unique Sony features of the brand new Afeela.
On the hood of the vehicle, just above the bumper, there may be a “media bar” which you can use to read messages. The automotive's media bar greeted me with my name: “Welcome, Dean Takahashi :).” You can program the media bar to display anything you wish, like “Happy Birthday.” You can put the Spider-Man logo on it and it would light up.
The automotive also has advanced safety features corresponding to “AI for ADAS” and offers the chance to unleash your creativity with “Mobility as a Creative Entertainment Space” – under the motto “redefining the connection between people and mobility”. For safety reasons, the automotive is supplied with cameras that detect obstacles within the environment, corresponding to pedestrians.
Sony and Honda are also developing recent entertainment and gaming features with Epic Games that use virtual space. Game developers can freely goal applications and services that run on Afeela's computing platform. Microsoft is developing a private conversation agent using the Microsoft Azure OpenAI service.
And Sony Honda Mobility is working with Polyphony Digital, the sport studio that develops the Gran Turismo automotive racing games, to create vehicles that mix the virtual and the true. I used to be in a position to play with the simulator developed by Polyphony Digital to simulate the technology within the vehicle.
AI for ADAS
The AI ​​for ADAS uses sensor devices and AI. It has vision transformers for perception and machine learning for path planning. Also, a redundant system is developed to make sure safety. In this method, Qualcomm Technologies' high-performance SoCs for automotive applications are used.
This tool simulates external environmental conditions corresponding to details about other vehicles, pedestrians, terrain and weather. Combining this technology with AR gives users an immersive experience that also increases safety.
Sony Honda Mobility will provide a 3D map overlaid with wealthy metadata from the Internet. Map data may also be used to expand the probabilities in the event of gaming and entertainment features.
To realize these functions by incorporating sensor and vehicle data, Sony Honda Mobility uses the powerful gaming engine Unreal Engine 5. The company uses the newest version, Unreal Engine 5.3, and can proceed to implement updates for the newest advances in Unreal Engine. That means you possibly can upgrade the automotive.
Speaking of safety, Sony and Honda are working on technology that may allow the front passenger to look at a movie or play a game without the motive force with the ability to see or be distracted by it. I asked Raisu Williams, product specialist at Sony Honda Mobility, if the viewing angle will prevent anyone from seeing the passenger display, but Williams said the corporate is working on it but didn't describe it yet.
The entertainment room
Instead of relying solely on keeping knowledge in-house, Sony Honda Mobility will provide an environment where creators and developers can freely develop applications and services that run on Afeela, in addition to a digital platform for collaborative creation and creativity expression.
The program features a personal conversation agent and a contract with Microsoft to develop a private conversation agent using the Microsoft Azure OpenAI service.
Sony Honda Mobility will collaborate with Polyphony Digital on vehicle development to develop vehicles that merge the virtual and the true, primarily in the world of ​​human senses and emotions, by combining Polyphony Digital's simulation technology with SHM's development of real-world vehicles.
There are LIDAR sensors on the surface of the automotive to detect your surroundings for autonomous driving functions.
The automotive will likely be equipped with AR navigation that may show you a line within the environment that you will have to follow step-by-step. The user interface is overlaid with AR.
The interior is pretty intriguing, spooky, and funky for gamers. There are cameras pointed inward at the motive force to see in the event you're distracted by your phone or drained. The AI ​​steps in to find out a plan of action and proactively sends you alerts on the fly.
There is a media bar with display that extends from the dashboard on the motive force's side through a middle console to the passenger side. It is a continuous display.
You can use the media bar on the surface to send welcome messages to the motive force or your passengers.
Open the door
If you're used to opening automotive doors, you'll notice that this automotive is different. It's comparable to the door handle of a Tesla by way of confusion. There's no door handle. There's a door button. You press it and the door opens. You may open it along with your smartphone.
As soon as you sit on the motive force's side, the seat and steering column move towards you. The memory function permits you to adjust the seat to suit you. I also saw a welcome message on the dashboard display. At the moment it will possibly show a picture, but in the longer term it would also greet you with sound and lightweight.
The most important screen is named a “panoramic” screen since it stretches from one end to the opposite, but might be divided into different sections. Sony tells me that the screen might help reduce driver distraction by allowing me to simply see all of the necessary information in front of me.
There are screens within the back seats for the rear passengers. They can watch TV or movies, play games or hearken to music.
Williams said the corporate can also be currently working on a three-passenger playback option, where all three passengers see the identical thing at the identical time.
The steering is less of a wheel and more of a “yoke.” It contains a control system that may look familiar to gamers, with buttons on either side of the centerline. The buttons on the appropriate mean you can control the motive force assistance features. Afeela's pillars include augmentation, autonomy, and affinity.
Williams said the name Afeela represents being at the center of the mobility experience, which is about making a feeling. When you mix that concept of ​​making a feeling with augmentation, autonomy and affinity, you get a number of the design priorities.
Augmentation is customizing a vehicle to make it unique, Williams said. For example, let's say you will have a favourite coffee shop. You could have that coffee shop listed on a screen with a map. You could zoom in or out on the world and alter the theme and ambient lighting. If you wanted, you might construct them around Sony's Gran Turismo game or the PSVR 2 headset, for instance. Right now, the branding relies on Sony's own games, but you never know what might occur in the longer term.
It was cool to see the ambient lighting contained in the automotive change to match the Miles Morales Spider-Verse theme. The roof of the automotive also changes lighting. The automotive has 360-degree surround sound so you possibly can feel such as you're in a surround sound field that's more like a concert hall than a automotive. If you roll the windows all the way in which up, people outside the vehicle may not hear the music.
The Afeela also comes with the Stingray Karaoke app, which enables you to belt out songs live within the automotive. And there's PlayStation Remote Play, which enables you to remotely connect with your PS4 or PS5 gaming console and proceed your in-vehicle gaming within the back seat.
Autonomy and affinity
Ultimately, Sony is aiming for Level 3 and Level 2+ autonomy in several situations. The automotive has cameras, sensors, processors and machine learning/AI. Much of that is designed to enhance safety and higher detect conditions, people and vehicles. This can result in understanding the situation in bad weather. This may give drivers more peace of mind.
Affinity is the thought of ​​collaborating with creators and developers from everywhere in the world. It gives you a platform to create your individual content and run it nonetheless you wish. Your automotive can show you how to express yourself and showcase the stuff you create.
The simulation
I didn't get to drive the true Afeela, but I got a feel for what it was wish to drive with the simulator, which has as much of the true automotive as possible in physical form after which virtual augmentations just like the screen that shows what it's wish to drive the automotive in the town. I drove the automotive and obeyed the traffic laws – something I might never do in a PlayStation game – and I enjoyed it.
The automotive is now ready for pre-sale. I can say that it would be an important machine, especially for gamers.
