Jan eighth 2022
SINCE 2008, when General Motors’ then boss delivered a keynote speech on the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), an annual know-how jamboree, Las Vegas has provided a glimpse of carmaking’s digital future. This yr almost 200 automotive corporations signed up for the occasion, which obtained cracking on January fifth. That day GM’s present chief, Mary Barra (pictured), addressed a largely on-line, Omicron-avoiding crowd. Like different huge carmakers, GM didn’t present up in individual. But Ms Barra’s digital CES outing signalled how quickly vehicles are evolving from oil-filled lumps of steel into units filled with silicon.
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Ms Barra talked about GM’s transformation from “automaker to platform innovator”, extolled its advances in industrial electrical autos (EVs) and autonomous driving, and unveiled a battery-powered model of the Chevrolet Silverado pickup. Rival corporations raced to look much more revolutionary. BMW demonstrated a system that adjustments a automotive’s paint color on the press of a button. Mercedes-Benz went as far as to say that its Vision EQXX idea, with inside supplies long-established from bamboo, cactus and mushroom, and a battery-powered vary of 1,000km, was “reinventing the car”. Not to be outdone, consumer-electronics giants strutted their automotive stuff. Sony, a Japanese one, shocked many attendees when it introduced a attainable foray into carmaking (although it could merely use the expertise to develop EV and self-driving tech to promote to others).
Other bulletins had been much less flashy however extra telling in relation to the digitisation of carmaking. Mobileye, the self-driving arm of Intel, which provides chips to many huge automotive corporations, introduced expanded offers with Ford, Geely and Volkswagen. Qualcomm, one other chipmaker, inked new ones with Volvo, Honda and Renault.
The courtship between carmakers and chip corporations will solely intensify. The worldwide chip scarcity that knocked almost 8m items off international automotive output is fortunately easing and annualised international automotive manufacturing might return to pre-pandemic ranges by the second half of 2022, in line with Evercore ISI, an funding financial institution. Still, automotive bosses are determined to keep away from a repeat. Many look enviously at Tesla, whose personal intimate rapport with semiconductor suppliers buoyed its full-year output for 2021 to a complete of 930,000 autos. ■
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This article appeared within the Business part of the print version beneath the headline “Motor Sin City”