Jan 4 (Reuters) - Japan's Sony (6758.T) connected Wednesday unveiled a prototype of the caller "Afeela" electrical vehicles it volition physique unneurotic with Honda (7267.T), saying it would harness its immense amusement contented arsenic it looks to go a subordinate successful next-generation cars.

Sony gave a glimpse of the Afeela, which sports rounded corners and a sleek achromatic roof, astatine the CES 2023 exertion commercialized amusement successful Las Vegas. The car volition usage exertion from hardware shaper Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O), including its "Snapdragon" integer chassis.

Sony's long-awaited propulsion into electrical vehicles - it announced the task with Honda successful March - shows however manufacturers are progressively focused connected the cockpit acquisition successful cars, which offers the imaginable to merchantability contented via subscription services cars, particularly arsenic autonomous driving capabilities improve.

"In bid to realise intelligent mobility, continuous bundle updates and high-performance computing are required," Yashuhide Mizuno, the main enforcement of Sony Honda Mobility, told the commercialized show. "To that end, we volition enactment intimately with Qualcomm."

Qualcomm connected Wednesday launched a caller processor, the Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC, that handles some assisted driving and cockpit functions, including entertainment. Previously those functions were handled connected antithetic chips, and bringing them unneurotic tin assistance bring down costs, a Qualcomm enforcement told Reuters.

Sony is besides looking to harness its accepted strengths successful sensors. The Afeela volition beryllium equipped with much than 40 sensors, Mizuno said. The car volition usage the "Unreal Engine" 3-D instauration instrumentality from Epic Games, the shaper of the "Fortnite" bid of games.

For Honda, the task with Sony whitethorn let it to velocity up what has truthful acold been a dilatory displacement to electric. It has besides struggled implicit the years to marque gains successful the luxury conveyance marketplace with its Acura brand. The caller EV volition beryllium priced astatine a premium, the task has said.

The task betwixt Sony Group Corp and Honda Motor Co Ltd aims to present its archetypal electrical vehicles by aboriginal 2026 successful North America.

Shares of Sony were up 1.6% successful Tokyo trade, portion Honda shares were flat. The benchmark Nikkei 225 (.N225) was small changed.

Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Additional reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee successful San Francisco; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Muralikumar Anantharaman

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