CES 2025: Autonomous cars were everywhere, plus other transportation technology trends

Even before CES 2025 began a few trends began to emerge – or more precisely, some gaps appeared.

All American and European automakers that helped turn CES into an auto show they were absent. Several Chinese manufacturers have filled this void, notably Zeekr, the EV brand of China Geely Holdings. Wey, a premium brand under Great Wall Motor, and Xpeng also had booths.

The West Hall in the Las Vegas Convention Center, where most of the vehicles and transportation technology is installed, felt emptier than previous years. And notably, some of the biggest announcements have nothing to do with new EVs — or other products that might take up a lot of physical space. Toyota, for example, announced the first phase of Woven City, a prototype city built on 175 hectares at the foot of Mount Fuji, was complete and looking for inventors and startups. Oh, and that too “Rocket Exploration”. It’s not exactly something that can be exhibited at CES.

However, there was future transportation technology to be discovered. This year, autonomous vehicle technology had a greater presence than ever, and what was there provided a few hints as to how the rest of the year may shape up. Here are the main themes we saw in the show.

AI and automated driving technology

Some of the biggest shows at the Las Vegas Convention Center focused on automated driving technologies.

Autonomous vehicle companies that are developing (or have launched) robotaxi services such as Mobility of MayJapanese Tier IV company, Waymoand Zoox all had a presence. In particular, Zoox also gave robotaxi rides to the media leading up to CES and throughout the show.

Automated technology has also appeared in other places, including companies focused on agriculture such as John Deere and Kubota and startups like Polymath Robotics that apply their self-driving systems in off-road environments.

Perhaps the largest group of companies was showing products that support automated driving and advanced driver assistance systems, including simulation, machine learning, sensors and data integration. Even Honda has entered the mix by announcing a new operating system called Asimo (yes, after the iconic robot) that will be integrated into its Next generation 0 series EVs and used to support ADAS functions.

Comma.ai was also on stage. This startup, founded by George Hotz, has developed an open source driver assistance system and supporting hardware that can be plugged into many modern vehicles to give advanced driver assistance capabilities on par with Tesla’s Autopilot and system GM’s hands-free Super Cruise.

Vay, which made a driverless breakthrough in car-sharing, was also in Las Vegas — though not on the show floor. The startup, which set up shop in the city a couple of years ago, announced a major expansion of its service.

Nvidia continues to partner with everyone

Every year at CES, the transportation desk receives a package of announcements from Nvidia detailing which manufacturer, supplier, and transportation partners have signed up to use Nvidia’s technology, and 2025 was no different. What stood out, however, was Nvidia’s commitment to providing as much of the self-driving stack as possible, from testing and simulation to on-board supercomputers to cloud supercomputing.

A prime example was Nvidia’s collaboration with Toyota. The two have worked together for years to help Toyota’s R&D unit develop, train and validate AV technology, but this year, the two announced more concrete plans to have it. The technological power of Nvidia the future vehicles of Toyotawhich we now know will be equipped with automated driving capabilities. In particular, we will see Nvidia’s Drive AGX Orin System-on-a-Chip (SoC) and DriveOS security operating system implemented on Toyota’s next-generation vehicles.

When it comes to Level 4 autonomous vehicle technology (that is, a system that can drive itself without needing a human to take over), Nvidia had more news to share. The chipmaker is partnering with self-driving truck company Aurora Innovation and automotive supplier Continental to see. Drive Thor by Nvidia SoC and DriveOS integrated into Aurora Driver, which is Aurora’s AV system that Continental plans to mass produce in 2027.

Finally, one of the most surprising partners it was with Uber. The ride-hail and delivery giant plans to use Nvidia’s new world model simulation tool, Cosmosand cloud-based AI supercomputing platform, DGX Cloudto support the development of autonomous vehicle technology. Uber has not shared how it plans to use these tools, as it does not develop its own AV technology. The company plans to partner with AV companies to bring self-driving services to its platform.

New takes on the screen

Screens are nothing new at CES. They have been everywhere for some time. This year, there were some companies that pushed the idea of ​​screens beyond traditional ideas.

The supplier Valeo showed a new product it calls panovision – and which will be in the Neue Klasse vehicles of the new generation of BMW – which reflects a full screen along the base of the windshield. The company reveals this technology at CES 2024. This year, a driver monitoring system in the cabin has been integrated into the system.

Automotive supplier Hyundai Mobis showed off a holographic screen that covers the entire windshield. From the outside it looks like any other windshield. But from behind the driver’s seat, the windshield turns into a transparent screen that gives information such as navigation and music playlists.

GenAI sneaks into the car

Automakers have been dragged into the mix of generative AI hype — a trend that started last year. Even the casual observer has probably noticed the term “genAI” “chatgpt” or “LLMs” throughout the vehicle technology section of the LVCC.

It was everywhere – and nowhere, if you catch our drift. In some cases, there were real partners and plans behind the words.

Take BMW and its partnership with Amazon. BMW used CES 2025 to present its new in-car user interface, which will debut in its New class sedan later this year and will eventually roll out to all models.

BMW said it will use Amazon’s Alexa personal assistant technology in these future vehicles and those on the road today. This is not the Alexa app driver that could be used. This is a white label product that will integrate Amazon’s great language models. The use of this technology will initially focus on navigation, in an effort to let customers give more extensive spoken commands using natural language.

BMW and Amazon are starting to roll out LLM-powered capabilities as part of a beta in select vehicles and countries.

Meanwhile, Qualcomm came to CES with improvements to its Snapdragon digital chassis (its suite of cloud-connected platforms for automakers) and Cockpit (its digital cockpit and infotainment system). And it wouldn’t be CES 2025 if some of these updates didn’t include generative AI.

The chipmaker said a number of automotive suppliers – such as Alps Alpine, Panasonic and Garmin – as well as Indian manufacturer Mahindra, plan to integrate Qualcomm technology into their experiences. Generative AI features now come with the territory for “intelligent and personalized in-cabin experiences.”

Some features that are powered by Meta’s Llama and OpenAI’s Whisper Small might look like real-time detection of distracted or drowsy driving; biometric identification to automatically adjust seat position, mirror angles, etc.; navigation recommendations based on the state of the driver, as at a coffee shop they seem tired.

Other potential use cases for Qualcomm’s generative AI offerings could be multimodal AI that identifies points of interest on the road, using models such as Llama, the open-source LlaVa and Fast Stable Diffusion, or even custom content generation for provide personalized entertainment on demand. passengers

Micromobility exists!

Finally, there has been much talk – and evidence – that micromobility is dead. But it is not right.

Of course, shared scooter and ebike businesses have largely struggled, or closed. But walking through the North Hall, we were struck by how many brands of ebikes and scooters (many of which were Chinese brands) exhibited.

Vmax released six new scooters for its 2025 lineup, Aima Technology Group revealed several new ebikes, and Heybikes released a mid-drive fat tire model. The segment leader Segwey also launched two new ebikes which are equipped with the company’s suite of smart technology and features called the Intelligent Ride System.

Verge Motorcycles subsidiary Donut Lab has also entered the mix and released an electric motor that can be integrated directly into the tire.