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Even before CES 2025 has begun, a few trends have begun to emerge — or rather, some gaps have emerged.
All American and some European automakers that helped turn CES into an auto show were absent. Several Chinese automakers have filled the void, notably Zeekr, an 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 vehicles and transportation technology is located, seemed emptier than in previous years. And notably, some of the biggest announcements had nothing to do with new electric vehicles — or other products that might 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 completed and in search of inventors and startups. Oh, and that too “rocket research.” It’s not exactly something you can show off at CES.
However, the technology of the future of transport had to be discovered. This year, autonomous vehicle technology was more present than ever before, and what was there gave few clues as to how the rest of the year could shape up. These are the main themes we noticed at the exhibition.
AI and automated driving technology
Some of the biggest exhibits at the Las Vegas Convention Center focused on automated driving technologies.
Autonomous vehicle companies that are developing (or have launched) robotaxi services like May MobilityJapanese Tier IV company, Waymoand Zoox were all present. Especially, Zoox also offered robotaxi rides to the media before CES and throughout the exhibition.
Automated technology has emerged elsewhere, including agriculture-focused companies like John Deere and Kubota and startups such as Polymath Robotics that are applying their self-driving systems in off-road environments.
Arguably the largest group of companies flaunted products that support automated driving and advanced driver assistance systems, including simulation, machine learning, sensors and data integration. Even Honda has thrown itself into the mix by announcing a new operating system called Asimo (yes, after the legendary robot) that will be integrated into next generation 0 series electric vehicles and is used for support Features of ADAS.
Comma.ai was also on site. The startup, founded by George Hotz, has developed an open-source driver assistance system and accompanying hardware that can plug 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 splash in driverless car sharing, was also in Las Vegas — though not at the show. The startup, which opened a shop in the city a few years ago, announced a a significant expansion of its service.
Nvidia continues to work 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 on to use Nvidia’s technology, and 2025 was no different. But what stood out was Nvidia’s commitment to providing as much of the self-managed stack as possible, from testing and simulation to embedded supercomputing to cloud supercomputing.
One of the best examples was Nvidia’s collaboration with Toyota. The two have worked together for years to help Toyota’s research and development unit develop, train and validate AV technology, but this year the two announced more concrete plans for Nvidia technology powers Toyota’s future vehicleswhich 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 the safety-focused operating system DriveOS installed on Toyota’s next-generation vehicles.
When it comes to Level 4 autonomous vehicle technology (meaning a system that can drive itself without the need for a human to take over), Nvidia had more news to share. The chip maker is partnering with self-driving truck company Aurora Innovation and automotive supplier Continental to see Nvidia’s Drive Thor 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 surprising partnerships been with Uber. The transportation 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 is not developing its own AV technology. The company plans to partner with AV companies to bring self-driving services to its platform.
New layouts on the screen
Displays are nothing new at CES. They’ve been everywhere for a while. This year, some companies pushed the idea of screens beyond traditional ideas.
Supplier Valeo has shown off a new product it calls panovision – which will feature in BMW’s next-generation Neue Klasse vehicles – which reflects the full screen along the base of the windscreen. The company unveiled this technology at CES 2024. This year, a driver monitoring system in the cabin was integrated into the system.
Automotive supplier Hyundai Mobis showed off a holographic display that covers the entire windshield. From the outside, it looks like any other windshield. But behind the driver’s seat, the windshield turns into a transparent screen that provides information such as navigation and music lists.
GenAI crawls into the car
Automakers are in on the generative AI hype mix — a trend that started last year. Even a 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 understand our movements. In some cases, there were real partnerships and plans behind those words.
Take BMW and its partnership with Amazon. BMW used CES 2025 to showcase its new in-car user interface, which will debut in A new class sedan later this year and eventually expanding to all models.
BMW said it will use Amazon’s Alexa custom assistant technology in these future vehicles, as well as those on the road today. This isn’t the Alexa app driver you might be used to. 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 enable users to give more comprehensive voice commands using natural language.
BMW and Amazon will begin rolling out LLM-powered capabilities as part of a beta in select vehicles and countries.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm came to CES with improvements Snapdragon digital housing (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 those updates didn’t include generative artificial intelligence.
The chip maker said a number of car 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 an area for “intelligent and personalized cabin experiences”.
Some features powered by Meta’s Llama and OpenAI’s Whisper Small might look like real-time detection of distracted or drowsy driving; biometric identification for automatic adjustment of seat position, mirror angles, etc.; navigation recommendations based on the driver’s condition, like in a coffee shop if he looks tired.
Other potential use cases for Qualcomm’s generative AI offerings could be multi-modal AI that identifies points of interest along the way, using models such as Llama, the open-source LlaVa and Fast Stable Diffusion, or even generating customized content to deliver personalized entertainment on demand from travelers.
Micromobility exists!
After all, there’s been a lot of talk—and evidence—that micromobility is dead. But that’s not exactly true.
Of course, joint ventures with scooters and e-bikes have mostly struggled or fizzled out. But as we walked through the North Hall, we were surprised by how many brands of electric bikes and scooters (many of which were Chinese brands) were on display.
Vmax released six new scooters for its 2025 lineup, Aima Technology Group revealed several new electric bikes, and Heybikes released a mid-drive fat tire model. The segment leader Segwey was also launched two new e-bikes which are equipped with a suite of smart technology and features from the company called the Intelligent Ride System.
Verge Motorcycles subsidiary Donut Lab has also stepped in and released an electric motor that can be integrated directly into the tire.
