At CES there was a huge presence of new automotive, robotic and mobility technologies that may re-define how the world travels. Cars, trucks and other forms of transport were on display drawing crowds and comments.
“From an automotive technology perspective, CES 2020 was a mixed bag of grand visions stretching past the next decade-plus, along with more measured progress on the key enablers required for change,” said Jeffrey Hannah, Director of North America for automotive technology research firm SBD Automotive.
Concepts included mobile boutique hotel spaces, connected ice cream trucks, flying taxis, building full smart cities, and numerous pod concepts for both human and logistics transport, says Hannah.
A trend at CES is the convergence of all transportation methods into an automotive and mobility framework, according to Colin Jamal Bird-Martinez, Senior Knowledge Analyst at Boston Consulting Group. His case-in-point is Hyundai's Personal Air Vehicle (PAV). Hyundai has partnered with Uber for air taxis.
Inside and outside of the Las Vegas Convention Center were a wide array of trucks and pre-production vehicles. Visitors seemed to love experiencing vehicles that will not go into production for years.
Amazon announced that Rivian will enable automotive functions from Alexa, from opening the hood climate control, rolling windows up and down, and even opening the hood and trunk. Crowds opened doors and peeped inside a blue electric Rivian R1T truck.
“We are here at CES to showcase our Alexa integration features,” says Amy Winters Mast, Marketing Manager for Rivian. She notes that Rivian vehicles will have Alexa functionality even when offline. Drivers can be in their homes and ask ‘How charged is my Rivian?’
However, the bathroom experience from RollBot stole the show, delivering toilet rolls autonomously on-demand from a smartphone app. CES really had it all!
For more highlights of CES, visit Auto Futures – our digital channel dedicated to covering the future of mobility.
