Even before CES 2025 kicked off, some trends began to emerge — or rather, some gaps emerged.
All the American and European automakers that have helped turn CES into an auto show were absent. Several Chinese automakers filled that gap, notably 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 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, where most of the automotive and transportation technology is housed, felt emptier than in previous years. And notably, some of the biggest announcements weren’t about new EVs — or other products that can take up a lot of physical space. Toyota, for example, announced that 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 it’s also “rocket exploration.” Not exactly something that could be showcased at CES.
However, there were future transportation technologies to be discovered. This year, autonomous vehicle technology had a bigger presence than ever before, and what was there offered some hints at how the rest of the year might shape up. Here are the main themes we noticed in the show.
Artificial intelligence and automated driving technology
Some of the largest exhibits at the Las Vegas Convention Center focused on automated driving technologies.
Autonomous vehicle companies that are developing (or have launched) robotaxi services such as May Mobility, Japanese company Tier IV, Waymo and Zoox all had a presence. Notably, Zoox was also giving robot rides to media leading up to CES and throughout the show.
Automated technology has also appeared elsewhere, including agriculture-focused companies like John Deere and Kubota and startups like Polymath Robotics applying its self-driving systems to off-road environments.
Perhaps the largest group of companies were showing products that support automated driving and advanced driver assistance systems, including simulation, machine learning, sensors and data integration. Even Honda jumped into the mix by announcing a new operating system called Asimo (yes, after the iconic robot) that will be integrated into the next-generation 0-Series EV and used to support ADAS features.
Comma.ai was also at the scene. This startup, founded by George Hotz, has developed an open source driver assistance system and support hardware that can be plugged into many modern vehicles to give it advanced driver assistance capabilities on par with Tesla Autopilot and GM’s hands-free Super Cruise system.
Vay, which has made a driverless shift to 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 major expansion of its service.
Nvidia continues to cooperate with everyone
Every year at CES, the transportation desk receives a package of announcements from Nvidia detailing which automakers, suppliers, and transportation partners have signed on to use Nvidia’s technology, and 2025 was no different. What stood out, however, was Nvidia’s commitment to offering as much of the self-driving stack as possible, from test and simulation to on-board supercomputers to cloud supercomputers.
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 Nvidia’s technology powerhouse, vehicles Toyota’s upcoming sedans, which we now know will feature automated steering. skills. Specifically, we’ll see Nvidia’s Drive AGX Orin System-on-a-Chip (SoC) and the safety-focused DriveOS operating system deployed in Toyota’s next-generation vehicles.
When it comes to Level 4 autonomous vehicle technology (meaning, a system that can drive itself without needing a human to take control), Nvidia had more news to share. The chipmaker is partnering with self-driving truck company Aurora Innovation and automotive supplier Continental which will see the Nvidia Drive Thor SoC and DriveOS integrated into the Aurora Driver, which is Aurora’s AV system that Continental plans to mass-produce in 2027.
Finally, one of the most surprising partnerships was with Uber. The travel and delivery giant plans to use Nvidia’s new world model simulation tool, Cosmos, and cloud-based AI supercomputing platform, DGX Cloud, to support the development of autonomous vehicle technology. Uber did not say how it plans to use those 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
Displays are nothing new at CES. They’ve been everywhere for a while. This year, there were several companies that pushed the idea of screens beyond traditional ideas.
Supplier Valeo showed off a new product it calls panovision – and which will be on next-generation BMW Neue Klasse vehicles – that projects a full screen across the base of the windscreen. The company unveiled this technology at CES 2024. This year, an in-cabin driver monitoring system has been integrated into the system.
Auto supplier Hyundai Mobis showed off a holographic display that covers the entire windshield. From the outside it looks like any other mosque. But from behind the driver’s seat, the windshield turns into a transparent screen that provides information such as navigation and music lists.
GenAI is crawling into the car
Automakers are getting into the mix generating AI hype — a trend that started last year. Even the casual observer is likely to have noticed the term “genAI” “chatgpt” or “LLMs” throughout the automotive technology section of LVCC.
It was everywhere—and nowhere, if you catch our drift. In some cases, there were real partnerships and plans behind the words.
Take BMW and its partnership with Amazon. BMW used CES 2025 to showcase its new in-car user interface, which will debut in its Neue Klasse sedan later this year and eventually roll out to all models.
BMW said it will use Amazon’s Alexa custom assistance technology in these future vehicles, as well as those on the road today. This is not what the Alexa app drivers can be used with. This is a white label product that will integrate Amazon’s large language models. The use of this technology will initially focus on navigation, in an effort to allow customers to give more extensive spoken commands using natural language.
BMW and Amazon will begin rolling out LLM-powered capabilities as part of a beta in select vehicles and locations.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm came to CES with improvements to its Snapdragon digital chassis (its cloud-connected platform commons for automakers) and Cockpit (its digital cockpit and infotainment system). And it wouldn’t be CES 2025 if some of those 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 carmaker 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 enabled 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 positions, mirror angles, etc.; navigation recommendations based on the driver’s condition, how to go to the cafe 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 way, using models like Llama, the open source LlaVa, and Fast Stable Diffusion, or even custom content generation for provided personalized entertainment, upon request. passengers.
Micromobility exists!
Finally, there’s been a lot of talk—and evidence—that micromobility is dead. But this is not quite right.
Of course, the joint ventures of scooters and e-bikes have mostly suffered or closed down. But walking through the North Hall, we were amazed at how many brands of bikes and scooters (many of which were 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-ride fat tire model. Segment leader Segwey also launched two new ebikes that are equipped with the company’s suite of smart technology and features called the Intelligent Ride System.
Verge Motorcycles subsidiary Donut Lab also got into the mix and released an electric motor that can be integrated directly into the tire.
