CES 2025: Self-driving cars were everywhere, along with other trends in transportation technology

Even before the start of CES 2025, some trends started to emerge — or more accurately, some gaps appeared.

All the American and some European automakers that helped turn CES into an auto show were absent. Several Chinese automakers have filled this gap, such as 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 the majority of vehicle and transportation technology is housed, felt emptier than in years past. And notably, some of the biggest announcements had nothing to do with new EVs — 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 acres at the foot of Mount Fuji, was complete and was looking for inventors and startups. Oh, and that it’s also “rocket exploration.” It’s not exactly something one can exhibit at CES.

However, there was future transportation technology to be discovered. This year, autonomous vehicle technology was more present than ever, and what was there provided some hints as to how the rest of the year might shape up. Here are the main themes we identified 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 were all present. It’s worth noting that Zoox also provided robot rides to the media leading up to CES and throughout the show.

Automated technology has popped up elsewhere, including agriculture-focused companies like John Deere and Kubota and startups like Polymath Robotics that are applying self-driving systems to off-road environments.

Perhaps the largest group of companies showcased products that support automated driving and advanced driver assistance systems such as simulation, machine learning, sensors and data integration. Even Honda got into the mix by announcing a new operating system called Asimo (yes, after the iconic robot) that will be built into its next-generation 0 Series electric vehicles and used to support ADAS features.

Comma.ai was 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 offer advanced driver assistance capabilities on par with Tesla Autopilot and hands-free. GM’s Super Cruise.

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

Nvidia continues to work with everyone

Every year at CES, the transportation office receives 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. What stood out, however, was Nvidia’s commitment to providing as much of the self-driving stack as possible, from testing and simulation to embedded supercomputers to cloud supercomputers.

A typical 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 specific plans to get Nvidia’s technology into future Toyota vehicles, the which we now know will be equipped with automated driving capabilities. Specifically, we’ll see Nvidia’s Drive AGX Orin System-on-a-Chip (SoC) and DriveOS operating system deployed in Toyota’s next-generation vehicles.

When it comes to Level 4 autonomous vehicle technology (ie, a system that can drive itself without the need for a human to take over), Nvidia had more news to share. The chipmaker is working with self-driving truck company Aurora Innovation and automotive supplier Continental to integrate Nvidia’s Drive Thor SoC and DriveOS 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 ride-hail and delivery giant plans to use Nvidia’s new global model simulation tool, Cosmos, and its cloud-based supercomputing artificial intelligence platform, DGX Cloud, to support the development of autonomous vehicle technology. Uber did not share 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 screenshots

Displays are nothing new at CES. It’s been everywhere for a while now. This year, there were some companies that pushed the idea of ​​screens beyond traditional ideas.

Supplier Valeo has unveiled a new product it calls panovision — which will be on BMW’s next-generation Neue Klasse vehicles — that projects 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 has been integrated into the system.

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

GenAI gets into the car

Automakers have been swept up in the creative mix of AI hype — a trend that started last year. Even the casual observer has likely noticed the term “genAI” “chatgpt” or “LLMs” throughout LVCC’s vehicle technology department.

It was everywhere — and nowhere, if you get our drift. In some cases, there were real collaborations 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 on the Neue Klasse sedan later this year and eventually roll out to all models.

BMW said it will use Amazon’s Alexa custom assistant technology in those future vehicles as well as those on sale today. These are not the Alexa app drivers that could be used. This is a white label product that will integrate Amazon’s major language models. Use of this technology will initially focus on navigation, in an effort to allow customers to give more extensive verbal 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 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 those updates didn’t include genetic artificial intelligence.

The chip maker said a number of car suppliers – including Alps Alpine, Panasonic and Garmin – as well as Indian automaker Mahindra, plan to integrate Qualcomm technology into their experiences. Built-in AI features now come with the territory for “intelligent and personalized cabin experiences”.

Some features powered by Meta’s Llama and OpenAI’s Whisper Small could look like real-time detection of distracted or drowsy driving. biometric recognition for automatic adjustment of seat positions, mirror angles, etc. navigation recommendations based on the driver’s condition, such as in a coffee shop if he looks tired.

Other potential use cases for Qualcomm’s productive AI offerings could be multimodal AI that identifies points of interest on the go using models like Llama, the open source LlaVa and Fast Stable Diffusion, or even creating custom content to provide personalized entertainment on demand passengers.

Micromobility exists!

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

Sure, scooter and e-bike sharing businesses have largely struggled or closed. But walking through the North Hall, we were struck by how many ebike and scooter brands (many of which were Chinese brands) were on display.

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

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