Sony's first electric vehicle and Honda will arrive in North America with a NACS charging port

Sony Honda Mobility, the joint venture created by the Japanese giants Sony and Honda, has reached an agreement with Tesla under which it commits to implementing the NACS charging standard in the Afeela electric vehicles it will begin selling next year in North America. This agreement makes Sony Honda Mobility the fourth Japanese manufacturer to confirm its support for this charging system, alongside Nissan, Toyota and Honda itself.

If everything goes according to plan, the first Afeela vehicle will reach the US market in 2025, with sales extending to Japan during the second half of 2026. The adoption of the NACS charging standard in North America by Afeela will allow customers of this young car brand to use one of the most extensive and fastest charging networks on the continent: the Tesla Supercharger network.

Advance reservations for Afeela’s first model in the United States will open in the first half of 2025, while sales will begin somewhat later that same year. However, first deliveries are not expected to take place until spring 2026. In any case, confirmation that Afeela vehicles will use the NACS charging standard in North America is news that will surely encourage more than one person to make a reservation, and it is therefore important for the company that it has been made public now.

The logical decision

Following the announcement of this agreement between Sony Honda Mobility and Tesla, Yasuhide Mizuno, the current Chairman and CEO of the Japanese firm, has stated that the top priority for the company he leads is to serve the convenience of the customer, including during the charging process, and that is why, in his opinion, adopting the NACS charging standard was the right choice.

NACS was originally designed as a proprietary charging system by Tesla for its vehicles. However, after the publication of the NACS connector design in November 2022 and the invitation for other manufacturers to use it as well, many of them began adopting it due to the wide coverage of Tesla’s Supercharger stations. Nevertheless, although, as we have said, many manufacturers have already committed to supporting the NACS standard, its implementation in their vehicles has yet to happen and, in the best case, for the time being the only option they offer is the use of an adapter.