CES 2024: What’s Buzzing in Autos

LAS VEGAS – Some of the automakers that have made big splashes at CES 2024 are not here this week – General Motors, Stellantis, Ford and Toyota, to name a few. But other automakers and suppliers are out in force pushing artificial intelligence, EVs, software-based vehicles and autonomous driving.

While automakers including Kia, Honda and VinFast have exhibited some new vehicles, suppliers such as Bosch, ZF, Valeo and others are here in force showing their wares to makers of automobiles, trucks and agricultural machinery, all of which share much the same emerging technology for automated driving, hydrogen fuel cells and more.

Here are a few of the highlights.

VinFast Truck:

The VinFast Wild electric pickup truck (pictured, below) shown this week is similar in size to the Rivian R1T in size and proportions. The bed on the truck can be extended with a mid-gate extension that folds the back seat down to accommodate loads and cargo. The design is by Torino Design.

VinFast recently announced that it will pursue a hybrid sales scheme in the U.S. combining direct sales with dealer sales. It is building a new factory in North America. But the Vietnamese automaker’s actual sales are heavily weighted to captive and affiliated companies of VinFast.

VinFast is also showing the very small VF3 CUV. It’s a 2-door EV that resembles a mini-Ford Bronco (not by accident, we think). At just 125.6 ins. (3,190 mm) long, dealers and potential dealers say it could be successful if priced around $20,000, should VinFast make that happen.

Read more: https://www.wardsauto.com/node/392852

VinFast truck picture

Kia EVs

Kia Motors has a vision for how EVs can seep into markets with a modular family of electric vehicles that come in different sizes and can work together in both commercial and personal transportation.

The Kia Platform Beyond Vehicles concept shown this week is actually five vehicles – three versions of the PV5 plus the PV7 concept, both of which require a driver aboard – and a Concept PV1 that would be almost fully autonomous. The family of concepts also includes a pickup spinoff.

Read more: https://www.wardsauto.com/node/392928

Honda EVs

Honda has been unplugging some of its recent electric-vehicle plans, but this week unveiled two new EV concepts and a new sub-brand to sell them.

The Japanese company only sells one EV today – a city car in Japan – and canceled a launch of that car in Europe, as well as ending plans to manufacture additional EVs with General Motors after the launch of this year’s Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX, both built in a joint effort with GM atop the latter’s Ultium platform.

But the new lineup of EVs from Honda will carry the sub-brand “O,” as in zero, and represents the vehicles’ zero-emission nature. The cars will have a new logo, too (pictured, below).

Honda CES24_0

Lidar and Roofs

Despite setbacks in the automated driving space – a massive recall for Tesla’s  Autopilot, the folding of Argo AI – autonomous systems are still progressing as an inevitability for ride-hailing, valet parking, robo-taxis and personal transportation.

One of the challenges is packaging lidar technology in many ADAS systems. Test vehicles have a large box on the roof, which is not tenable for OE designers.

Roof supplier Webasto has packaged an elegant lidar sensor unit (pictured, below) with lidar-based safety systems supplier Luminar that should pass muster with most designers.

Webasto Luminar lidar roof

Crabwalking Hyundai

Hyundai Mobis shows new technology that unlocks an EV’s wheels to maneuver in ways that would get James Bond’s attention. The "MOBION" EV is equipped with next-generation “e-Corner System” motion technology (pictured, below), including lateral and diagonal motion, as well as stationary pivot turns. Indeed, the car can back up parallel to a super-tight parking space and just turn the wheels to move sideways into the space.

"In-Wheel technology involves placing four small motors inside each wheel, as opposed to the single large driving motor commonly used in EVs," says Vice President Lee Young-kook, Head of Electrification Lab for Hyundai Mobis. "This configuration enables each wheel to generate its own power independently."

Hyundai mobion

Coffee Break?

Bosch introduces a pair of new AI-powered technologies. The German-based supplier has eye-tracking tech that detects whether you are drowsy (pictured, below) and can be leveraged into a system to detect alcohol impairment. The system will ask you if you want coffee when you get home and will connect to your smart appliance to get it brewing. This may seem a bit contrived, but it is meant to show car-to-home-connected communication.

The other eye-tracking tech from Bosch can be used while driving to detect what you’re looking at and other information about the street sign, building, business or point of interest. With a virtual voice assistant, it can tell you if the attraction is open and even how likely it is to be crowded.

Bosch eye tracking screenshot_0

Park It

Suppliers are pushing the safety and convenience of autonomous technology that will impress and delight consumers. Bosch is combining its automated parking system with a charging robot that automatically plugs into the vehicle once it's positioned in a parking space (pictured, below). Once it's finished charging, the vehicle will then move itself to another space so that it doesn't block the charger.

Testing is underway at Bosch's “development parking garage” in Ludwigsburg, Germany, the company says. In Ingolstadt, Germany, automated parking is being tested with cars driving themselves to and from parking spaces, but without plugging in. This constitutes Level 4 autonomy since the cars are driving themselves without a driver on board.

Bosch automated-valet-charging