Keeping up with the annual Consumer Electronics Show can help dealers better prepare for the future.
In my area of future mobility, one of the things I spend a lot of time doing is urging people to pay attention.
If you’ve followed me for a while, whether with Canadian auto dealer or on LinkedIn, you’ll know that the annual event to pay the most attention to is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which is held in Las Vegas, Nevada every January.
This event is absolutely massive — more than 200,000 people descend on Sin City to visit the huge halls that literally have acre upon acre of indoor displays and booths. It is also entirely misnamed; it might be called Consumer Electronics, but this is a B2B event and its wares are everything to do with tech, no matter the industry — including automotive.
Why is CES important, and why should dealers be watching closely? They should be watching because the event provides a window into future trends in the automotive industry.
You may ask why traditional auto shows don’t show the future, and the answer is obvious: OEMs primarily show cars that you can buy today, so it is aimed at consumers, not business. Auto shows are also about cars, not mobility, and the de-siloing of the transportation landscape means that auto retail will become much more than just selling and serving cars.
This change is happening quickly, and you can bet that as we enter the 2030s — a decade from now — what your dealership does on a daily basis will be very different from today.
Hyundai had nothing but pods and a massive air taxi drone — again, with a vision of how transportation blends together in cities.
Every dealer principal knows that the auto retail business requires huge investments in facilities, people and business, and the goodwill can take years to pay off and propagate. Thus, understanding how these macro trends could influence your current and future investments is critical.
With that, here are four key trends (and a bonus) from CES that dealers should be paying close attention to:
New OEM brands everywhere
New brands seem to be sprouting from the woodwork: Fisker, Rivian, Byton, Faraday Future, and many others. And guess what, none of them want anything to do with traditional automotive retail. We also saw a very interesting concept car, essentially a running driving prototype designed and built by Canada’s Magna, with a Sony interior, cockpit UI/UX and branding. Sony has real brand pull and strong name recognition, meaning it could be that Best Buy will start selling cars soon. It might sound weird, but the reality is that this is quite a plausible future scenario.
The explosion of mapping, lidar, and autonomous components
Two or three years ago we reached a peak of inflated expectations of autonomous vehicles. Think Tanks like RethinkX predict that no will own a car by 2030 and that everyone will just take the autonomous robotaxis. That hype has now turned into a more realistic vision that autonomy will take longer to roll out. However, be guaranteed, it sure is happening. The number of companies that were showing their wares in lidar, mapping, ADAS, autonomous control systems and other AV products, blew my mind. It’s this ecosystem vibrancy that we should pay close attention to as it forms the pathway for autonomous vehicles, and a complete revolution in automotive and transportation.
Smart cities
If there was a theme amongst OEMs at CES this year, it was less about cars and more about cities. Smart cities, and the way new technologies become integrated into them is a major play and thought process for OEMs. In fact, Toyota had only one car on display; the rest was a vision of their future Smart City project at the Base of Mount Fuji called Woven City. Hyundai had nothing but pods and a massive air taxi drone — again, with a vision of how transportation blends together in cities. While it seemed a little out there for some, it reflects a realization that OEMs don’t make cars anymore — they’re part of a transportation eco-system, and that’s an opportunity that is much larger than building and selling cars.
Electric
If someone had a vehicle at CES that wasn’t electric, it stood out and for all the wrong reasons. Ford displayed the latest Shelby Mustang, and it looked like they had forgotten to pick it up from SEMA a couple of months earlier, rather than purposefully bringing it to CES. Speaking of Ford, they also showed their new Mustang-inspired electric vehicle — the Mach E. Specs are pretty much in-line with the Tesla Model 3 and Y, and it’s going to be a very exciting car for the Ford network.
Also exciting are the products from the previously mentioned new OEMs. The Byton M-Byte has a giant 44-inch screen in the dash, the Faraday Future FF91 SUV can accelerate to 60 km in just 2.3 seconds, and the Fisker Ocean will likely start at under $40,000. Oh, and that tank-turnin’ Rivian R1T looks like the neatest adventure recreational truck I’ve ever seen.
Not to forget, there was also a plethora of EV drive systems on display from all the big Tier 1s and Tier 2s, with other new suppliers touting some amazing breakthroughs. Most interestingly, Bosch showed a joint project with Benteler, a European chassis systems supplier, which has designed an EV chassis that any OEM, new or old, can quickly adapt a body and interior to. Call it the return of coach-building — EV style.
Bonus point – Amazon auto retail
Every dealer seems to fear Amazon, and with good reason. They are a retail sales goliath, and it was only a matter of time before they showed something interesting. At CES, they showed an end-to-end auto retail sales process system, which was completely integrated and user-friendly. Watch that carefully, as this could hit dealerships very quickly.
So, dealer friends, keep your eye close on CES every year. Decoding the messages here will give you a window into the future of mobility, and therefore prepare you for the future success of your business.
