Episode Summary
Executive Summary: The episode is a CES 2023 roundup centered on absurd-but-real gadget launches, especially Sony Honda Mobility’s “Afeela” car, BMW’s concept EV, and a wave of TV, laptop, and smart-home announcements. The hosts frame CES as a mature, hype-driven show where meaningful hardware advances coexist with ridiculous branding, aggressive subscriptions, and lots of prototypes that may never ship.
Main Topics: Sony Honda Mobility’s Afeela EV (Priority: 5/5): The hosts devote the most attention to Sony and Honda’s new EV brand, mocking the name and the car’s screen-heavy, Sony-software-first approach, including a front light-bar display that can show Spider-Man ads or weather. BMW i Vision Dee concept car (Priority: 4/5): BMW’s concept is discussed as a highly rendered, vaporware-like EV with digital facial expressions, metaverse/avatar features, and real e-ink body panels, making it one of the strangest CES car reveals. TV innovations and AI picture tuning (Priority: 5/5): LG, Samsung, Roku, TCL, and Dell’s display news dominate the TV segment, including LG’s personalized picture wizard, Samsung’s AI remastering, wireless TV concepts, and the idea that TV hardware is now differentiated mostly by software tricks. Laptops and handheld computing oddities (Priority: 4/5): Lenovo’s Yoga Book 9i dual-screen laptop is highlighted as the most compelling and ridiculous laptop concept, alongside AMD’s new mobile CPUs/GPUs and Razer’s 5G handheld Edge device. Smart-home and Matter ecosystem push (Priority: 4/5): The show notes CES 2023 as a big year for Matter-enabled gadgets, including new smart-home controllers, Philips Hue integration on Samsung TVs, and a general sense that every appliance now wants to join the ecosystem. Connected car infrastructure and in-car software (Priority: 3/5): Mercedes’ billion-dollar EV charging rollout, Google built-in expansion, Android Auto updates, and the broader shift toward software-defined in-car experiences are discussed as more practical car news amid the hype. Weird subscription and sensor products (Priority: 4/5): The hosts react to unusually specific products like Withings’ pee sensor and Kohler’s shower pods, emphasizing how CES increasingly mixes legitimate tech with subscription-based or overly niche consumer offerings.
Key Arguments: CES is back to its pre-pandemic level of gadget absurdity, with a flood of prototypes and concepts that may never ship. Sony’s car strategy appears unclear: Honda knows how to build a car, while Sony seems focused on stuffing it with screens, content, and subscriptions. The Afeela name and overall branding are viewed as deeply questionable, suggesting the product may be more concept than viable mass-market vehicle. BMW’s concept car is so render-heavy and futuristic that it feels like NFT/metaverse-era design lingering after the trend has faded. The real technical progress in TVs is less about panel quality and more about software, AI processing, and ecosystem lock-in. LG and Samsung are pushing picture “wizards” and AI remastering because manufacturers can no longer rely on purely hardware upgrades to drive TV replacement cycles. Wireless TV breakout boxes and high-end display features are impressive but mostly serve wealthy installers and enthusiasts, not mainstream buyers. AMD and Lenovo show that actual hardware innovation is still happening, but the biggest excitement comes from unusual form factors rather than incremental spec bumps. Matter is showing up everywhere at CES, but the ecosystem still feels early and somewhat fragmented despite broad industry support. The most successful CES products often balance novelty with practicality, but many launches here lean too far into gimmickry or subscriptions.
Data Points: Afeela launch timeline: Orders start in 2024; first North American shipments in the first half of 2025 - Sony Honda Mobility’s announced rollout plan for its new EV brand Afeela market timing: 2026 - The hosts joke repeatedly about the car not really existing and being far from market Mercedes EV charger rollout: $1 billion - Mercedes and ChargePoint plan to spend this amount on charging infrastructure in the U.S. Mercedes charging hubs: 400 hubs - Planned U.S. charging hubs across cities and highways Mercedes hub capacity: Approximately 6 charging stations per hub - The planned charging-site layout Ring Car Cam price: $200 - Ring’s dash cam product is now shipping Withings pee sensor cartridges: 100 cartridges - The P sensor includes a cartridge system that supports about 100 days of testing Withings multi-use pod: 8 uses - The shower/pee-adjacent pod products are discussed with unit counts and pricing logic Kohler shower pods pricing: $21 for six single-use pods; $24 for one multi-use pod - Kohler’s Sprig shower pods pricing is cited as unusually subscription-like LG wireless TV size: 97-inch - LG’s wireless display concept centers on a massive high-end panel Lenovo Yoga Book 9i price: $2,100 - Price of the dual-screen laptop with included pen, case, keyboard, and stand Lenovo Yoga Book 9i memory: 16 GB RAM - One of the listed specs for the device AMD mobile GPU: RX 7600M - AMD’s new laptop graphics chip announced at CES AMD CPU core count: 16 cores - One of AMD’s new mobile processors is described as a 16-core chip Intel comparison CPU core count: 24 cores - Referenced as Intel’s newer mobile processor configuration Razer Edge pricing: $399 Wi‑Fi only; $599 unlocked 5G; $359 on Verizon contract - Razer’s handheld gaming device pricing tiers
Pivotal Quotes: "The whole point of this car is to get you to subscribe to Sony software inside the car." — Nili Patel: Critiquing Sony Honda Mobility’s strategy for the Afeela EV "Aphila will attempt to embody three main themes: autonomy, augmentation, and affinity." — Transcript narration / host reading: A mock-serious line from Sony Honda Mobility’s branding language "The future. We're all still using this." — Alex Kranz: Reacting to LG’s wireless TV breakout-box concept and high-end cabling problem
Implications: CES 2023 signals a gadget industry that’s back to shipping ambitious concepts, but real value is shifting toward software, ecosystem control, and weird form factors. For consumers, the biggest risk is paying for hype, subscriptions, and processing tricks rather than meaningful upgrades.
About The Vergecast
The Vergecast is the flagship podcast from The Verge about small gadgets, Big Tech, and everything in between. Every Friday, hosts Nilay Patel and David Pierce hang out and make sense of the week’s most important technology news. And every Tuesday, David leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives – and which ones you should bring into yours.