Honda and Sony hope to keep customers in the same car for ten years

Honda is still a relatively small player in the field of electric cars and it is completely unexplored territory for tech giant Sony. The two Japanese companies are joining forces in Afeela to change that. Afeela recently presented its first concrete study model, an aptly named Prototype slippery electric car that clearly targets the Mercedes-Benz EQE and Tesla Model 3. How exactly does Afeela want to distinguish itself? Well, among other things by keeping the models up-to-date for a very long time. This is evident from a special ambition that Sony Honda Mobility CEO Yasuhide Mizuno expresses in conversation with, among others Automotive News.

According to Mizuno, Afeela’s goal is to keep customers in the same car for up to ten years. Something more concrete; it wants to offer ten-year lease or subscription contracts. “It is tradition to replace a car every three or five years. But now a big change awaits. We will constantly update this model, trying to let customers use the car for five to ten years.” According to Mizuno, customers will have the option to install new updates and keep the lease amount the same, or to decline updates in exchange for a lower lease rate. Undoubtedly, there is also a reduced rate for a longer lease period.

Afeela Prototype (Honda and Sony).

Large computing power is required to keep the car really interesting for that long. After all, in a time span of ten years, certainly at the current pace, technologies will be added that demand more and more from the software and chips. Afeela therefore wants to equip its models with an extremely powerful chip. For the tech enthusiasts; we are talking about a chip from Qualcomm that is good for 800 TOPS (800 trillion operations per second). Among other things, this should make it possible for Afeelas to drive autonomously if the law allows this. For this, Afeela is also equipping the cars with the necessary sensors and also with Lidar technology.

As mentioned, Afeela will introduce its first model in 2025, a production version of the Prototype. According to Mizuno, a second and even third model is already being considered. It is not yet known if and when Afeela will also come to Europe.

Would you keep driving a car for ten years if there are constant updates and the car can do more and more, or do you simply want to try something new sooner? Or maybe those updates are not even necessary for you to do with a car for so long? Let me know in the comments.