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LAS VEGAS — If CES 2022 was nearly automakers setting lofty goals for automated driving and displaying futuristic prototypes, CES 2022 saw those automakers accept steps to further define how that time to come might actually look and feel. In the aforementioned fashion that cars are more similar than different today, the futurity visions are similar too — just automakers and suppliers are trying to carve out differentiation.

In many ways, automakers are trying to ensure the car is every bit connected to your life equally your smartphone is. A large office of the smartphone'southward power is the connection to the cloud to enable new services and experiences across different devices. As CES demonstrates every yr, those devices are far more than than the figurer, smartphone, tablet, and TVs; they at present include wearables, cameras, lights, appliances, and endless others. The ability of the cloud also adds intelligence and analytics to facilitate a wealth of new services, capabilities, and automation to activities that previously required much more human being interaction. To a large extent, the automobile visions at CES were virtually bringing the same level of connection to the automobile, to enable it to participate in as an integral part of those new services. Automated driving, when it truly becomes mainstream over the next decade or more, will enable human attention to focus on other activities that don't involve piloting a car to a destination.

To that end, automakers — and industry suppliers — are showtime to flesh out their visions of what the "mobility feel" looks like in the future. At CES 2022, the industry ticked off their goals and themes. Some were common beyond all of them, like a goal of ultimately reducing auto accident fatalities to zero by increasing safety via smarter cars with more sophisticated systems that can compensate for human driving errors. The other common theme was the want to imbue the motorcar with the same intelligence that make your smartphone such an integral function of your life. Across these, there are ways in which automakers are looking to differentiate their offerings.

Chrysler Portal Concept Interior

Chrysler Portal Concept Interior

Fiat Chrysler (FCA) kicked off CES by showing its Portal concept car (pictured at top). FCA had been viewed by some as "behind" in the race to automated driving and new designs, and this concept was touted as "designed by millennials for millennials." The design attempts to make the auto a more than flexible device, all-around millennial transportation needs equally their families abound. Some innovative features include recognizing owners from afar by smartphone, personalizing the in-motorcar feel with facial recognition and biometrics, and providing a community display screen, where multiple occupants tin view and share content in the car. Some other technologies, which are starting to exist seen in other new cars, include smart habitation integrations (controlled via an interface from the machine), natural language recognition, and in vehicle mobile commerce, where the automobile becomes an extension of services similar Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

BMW-Connected-Window-01-750x500

BMW's elaborate displays at CES continued in 2022 with a separate booth outside the convention heart floor and a armada of cars that included prototype self driving models of its current models, similar the 2022 5 Serial. BMW partnered with Microsoft, Intel, Amazon, and others to articulate their vision of the connected experience. BMW'due south story at CES attempted to paint real world scenarios of how the vehicle connects to your daily life. Using the previously announced Open Mobility Cloud, BMW looks to weave the car as an integral smart device by tapping into data in other services y'all currently utilize. By accessing your calendar, it can derive schedule and locations y'all demand to be at during your day, and feed that direct into the car.

In the CES scenario, an incoming asking for a tiffin date gets fed directly to the automobile with a time and location, and cloud services tell yous when you demand to leave. BMW besides showed how they want to bring natural voice services into the car, by demoing Microsoft's Cortana assistant attainable from the vehicle'due south iDrive interface. At that place'south nothing revolutionary there, other than the bulletin being that the company wants to focus on an open approach to bring best-of-breed continued services into the car rather than developing its own.

BMW's current connected app for smartphones brings (model-dependent) features like remote lock/unlock, offset, and monitoring features, likewise as integration with pop infotainment services like Pandora, Spotify, and others. The experience at CES was billed every bit a hereafter extension of these capabilities. Taking attendees on a drive that included a no-hands, fully automated stretch on the interstate that runs through Las Vegas, they showed how some electric current (and coming) features – like gesture and vocalisation control of car infotainment, more detailed data almost locations as yous drive past them, traffic light information, and personalization of the surround in the car — can be ameliorate enjoyed and exploited when the auto takes care of driving duties and navigating to a destination with no input.

Hyundai IONIQ Scooter_folding 3

Hyundai connected to expand on its self-driving vision, with some similar messages around a hyper continued machine that will amend integrate into your daily life. To eternalize its themes around automated driving, smart traffic, intelligent remote monitoring services, and the "mobility hub," Hyundai appear a major partnership with Cisco to bring the company'south network, IoT, and security expertise to the connected car space.

Just the company as well showed a different vision of mobility. The Hyundai Waist Exoskeleton is a robotic device that can help paraplegics to walk and move on their ain. Another version of this "vesture robot" allows workers in a warehouse or factory flooring to lift large weighty objects safely by augmenting their capabilities. Also in Hyundai'south vision of mobility was a the foldable Ioniq electric scooter, a lightweight "last mile" device which could be stored in the door of its Ioniq electric car.

Hyundai besides talked up its vision of driver prophylactic with a suite of future capabilities for monitoring driver health and state of mind in the machine, dubbed the "Wellness and Mobility Cockpit." Sensors and cameras will monitor such things as driver animate charge per unit and depth, posture, heart charge per unit, facial features, and eye tracking to detect a commuter's mood, attention, and state. If the organization detects potential issues with focus and attention, "mood bursts" can be activated using a diverseness of sensory experiences. For case, if posture is sagging, the seat can be adapted to promote a better position. Similarly, releasing scents such as peppermint or cedar, as well every bit adjustments to lights, sounds, and temperature can modify the driver mood and bring proper attention on a commute or diffuse tension. Maybe this is a benign Big Brother in the cockpit?

Besides these innovations, Hyundai also stressed a couple of other themes. 1 of them was well-nigh "democratizing" advanced driving features – including full automation – to bring them inside the reach of average consumers. This would seem a natural fit with their current make image. The other was well-nigh efficiency, associating it heavily with the Ioniq sub brand. This office reflects some technology challenges as the move to fully electric powertrains continues and heavy doses of calculating ability and other electronics continue to be put into cars. Managing energy efficiently to maintain range and operation and powering a new array of digital activities in vehicles volition get increasingly of import.

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Toyota showcased some of the piece of work from their new Silicon Valley auto learning lab in the Concept-I prototype. Using terms like "kinetic warmth" for the design and introducing Yui artificial intelligence banana, Toyota aimed to make future car capabilities friendly and approachable. The company also echoed a theme of safe, where they want to reduce traffic related fatalities to zilch using advanced artificial intelligence for self-driving, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication.

Interestingly, Toyota seemed to position self-driving capabilities as an option to the experience, where the commuter can let the car to have over duties based on mood and what he may want to do on the journey. Among the futuristic interfaces in the image was a full-color 3D head-upward display where information pops upwardly every bit needed, avoiding a huge primal screen with an overload of information.

The motorcar business is undergoing rapid alter. Some in the industry say the delta may be as much as in the early on days of the industry a century ago. It and the move to electric ability from internal combustion are changing the central car platform and the driving – or the "mobility" – feel. It'southward going to be an interesting ride.