Even before CES 2025 began some trends began – or more precisely, some gaps appeared.

All US and some European automakers helped make CES an auto show not there. Many Chinese automakers have filled that void, especially Zeekr, the EV brand owned by China’s Geely Holdings. Wey, a premium brand under Great Wall Motor, and Xpeng also had booths.

The West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, where most of the vehicle and transportation technologies are set up, felt emptier than in previous years. And notably, some of the biggest announcements aren’t related to 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 acres at the foot of Mount Fuji, is complete and in search of inventors and startups. Oh, and that too “exploring rockets.” Not really something one can show off at CES.

However, there is future transportation technology to discover. This year, autonomous car technology has a bigger presence than ever, and what’s out there gives some hints as to how the rest of the year will shape up. Here are the major themes we saw in the show.

AI and automated driving tech

Some of the largest exhibits at the Las Vegas Convention Center focused on automated driving technologies.

Autonomous car companies that are developing (or launching) robotaxi services like With MobilityJapanese Tier IV company, Waymoand Zoox all have a presence. Especially, Zoox also provides robotaxi rides in the media leading up to CES and throughout the show.

Automated tech is also emerging in other areas, including companies focused on agriculture John Deere and Kubota and startups like Polymath Robotics applying its self-driving system in off-road environments.

Perhaps the largest group of companies presented products that support automated driving and advanced driving 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-gen 0 Series EVs and used to support Features of ADAS.

Comma.ai is also on the scene. 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 them advanced driver assistance capabilities similar to Tesla Autopilot and GM’s hands-free Super Cruise system. .

Vay, which puts a driverless twist on car-sharing, was also in Las Vegas — though not on the show floor. The startup, which set up shop in the city a few years ago, announced a greatly expanding its services.

Nvidia continues to cooperate with everyone

Every year at CES, the transportation desk gets a bunch of announcements from Nvidia detailing which automakers, suppliers, and transportation partners have signed up to use Nvidia technology, and 2025 is no different. What stands out, however, is Nvidia’s commitment to providing as much as possible in the self-driving stack, from testing and simulation to onboard supercomputers to cloud supercomputing.

A prime example is Nvidia’s collaboration with Toyota. The two have been working 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 with Nvidia’s tech powers future Toyota vehicleswhich we now know will be equipped with automatic driving capabilities. Specifically, we will see Nvidia’s Drive AGX Orin System-on-a-Chip (SoC) and the DriveOS safety-focused operating system deployed in Toyota’s next-generation vehicles.

When it comes to Level 4 autonomous car technology (meaning, a system that can drive itself without needing a human to take over), Nvidia has a lot of news to share. The chipmaker has partnered with self-driving trucking company Aurora Innovation and automotive supplier Continental to see Nvidia’s Drive Thor The SoC and DriveOS are integrated with the Aurora Driver, which is Aurora’s AV system that Continental plans to mass produce in 2027.

Finally, one of the most amazing partnerships 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 did not share how it plans to use the tools, as it is not developing its own AV technology. The company plans to partner with AV companies to bring self-driving services to its platform.

New screen capture

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

Supplier Valeo showed a novel product it calls panovision – and which will be in BMW’s next-generation Neue Klasse vehicles – which displays a full screen along the base of the windshield. The company unveiled this technology at CES 2024. This year, an in-cabin driver monitoring system is integrated into the system.

Auto supplier Hyundai Mobis showed off a holographic screen that covers the entire windshield. From the outside it looks like any windshield. But from behind the driver’s seat the windshield becomes a transparent screen that provides information such as navigation and music playlists.

GenAI is crawling in the car

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

It’s everywhere – and nowhere, if you catch our drift. In some cases, there are real associations and plans behind the words.

Take BMW and its partnership with Amazon. BMW is using CES 2025 to showcase its new in-car user interface, which will debut New class sedan later this year and eventually spread to all models.

BMW said it will use Amazon’s Alexa custom assistant technology in these future cars as well as those on the road today. These are not the Alexa app drivers that can be used. This is a white label product that will integrate with Amazon’s major language models. The use of this technology will focus primarily on navigation, in an effort to allow customers to provide a wider range of spoken commands using natural language.

BMW and Amazon will begin rolling out the LLM-powered capability as part of a beta in select vehicles and countries.

In the meantime, Qualcomm came to CES with its improvements Snapdragon Digital Chassis (the 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 the updates didn’t include generative AI.

The chipmaker says that a variety of automotive suppliers – such as Alps Alpine, Panasonic, and Garmin – as well as Indian automaker Mahindra, plan to integrate Qualcomm technology into their experiences. Generative AI features are now joining the territory for “intelligent and personalized in-cabin experiences.”

Some features powered by Meta’s Llama and OpenAI’s Whisper Small may look like real-time detection of distracted or drowsy driving; biometric identification to automatically adjust seat positions, mirror angles, etc.; navigation recommendations based on the driver’s condition, such as a coffee shop if they look tired.

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

There is micromobility!

Finally, there is a lot of talk – and evidence – that micromobility is dead. But that’s not right.

To be sure, shared scooter and ebike businesses are increasingly struggling, or closing. But walking through the North Hall, we were amazed at how many ebike and scooter brands (mostly Chinese brands) were on display.

Vmax released six new scooters for its 2025 lineup, Aima Technology Group unveiled several new ebikes, and Heybikes released a mid-drive fat tire model. The segment leader Segwey was also launched two new ebikes equipped with the company’s suite of smart tech 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 wheel.