CES 2025 clearly didn’t add any glitter to my life. The show usually brings rich news for the automobile, this was not the case this year. This is what motivated this editorial in the Watt Else newsletter on January 9.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas opened on January 7. The show dedicated to tech has become one of the key events in the automotive industry in recent years. Historical manufacturers, equipment suppliers and aspiring automobile startups are flocking there to assert to the world that they are in the game when it comes to technology.
In reality, this introduction probably should have been conjugated to the past tense, because this year’s edition does not provoke any form of excitement. I can’t tell if this is the end of an era or if I’m just jaded.
A CES 2025 without surprises
This edition of CES will not go down as a good year for the automobile industry. The manufacturers present do not really stand out from the crowd. Even BMW, which previously presented significant innovations, looks grim with its new “Panoramic iDrive” handset, the future dashboard of its models.
We shouldn’t count too much on Toyota to raise the level of excitement: the manufacturer came to talk about space conquest and experimental city projects for the future of mobility. A long-term topic that was first presented at CES 2018.
Honda is banking on the electric car, but the prototypes on display worry more about the future of the brand than they excite spectators. Honda’s collaboration with Sony for the Afeela brand is also starting to lose a little of its luster over the years. Prototypes of this unaffordable electric car have been coming together for 5 years now.
Other brands are exposing themselves to be seen like Mitsubishi or Scout, the new Volkswagen entity in the USA, but without real added value. As for explaining Suzuki’s presence at the show, it’s a mystery. The manufacturer has apparently decided to take the event on the wrong foot, perhaps a touch of Japanese humor.
No more “Tesla killer”?
It was the guilty pleasure of CES. At each edition, we discovered or followed the evolution of startups that were going to revolutionize the electric car… or not! Models like Lordstown Endurance, Faraday Future FF91, Byton M-Byte, Fisker Emotion and Fisker Ocean had their fifteen minutes of glory there. Their conferences delighted us with the ambitions displayed, often excessive. Three of these startups have filed for bankruptcy, and it’s quite likely that Faraday Future will suffer the same fate sooner or later. Fortunately, some entrepreneurial adventures are doing better, like Lucid or Rivian, even if everything is not won.
CES was the best way for these projects to attract media attention, and try to raise money from investors looking for the next unicorn to support. It is also for these reasons that brands like Vinfast (Vietnamese manufacturer) or Togg (Turkish manufacturer) have invested in stands during previous editions. In the meantime, no new actor seems to have created a buzz this year.
New priorities
The event is expensive if you see things in the big picture. There is no doubt that several automotive groups have reviewed their priorities to obtain more immediate results on sales during this period of market tension.
All of this is not necessarily a bad thing. It is much more useful to concentrate on the essential than to promise mountains and wonders of technology, which will probably never see the light of day. All eyes are now on a much more modest car show, that of Brussels, which opens its doors on January 10. This will be an opportunity to come across the latest real news.
Source: www.numerama.com
