Electronics Show Returns to Realism After Self-Driving Bubble Bursts
- Practicality and profit are the buzzwords at a more sober CES
- Electric vehicles, robot tractors take stage at Las Vegas show
The CES logo is displayed at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesThe age of adventure is being replaced by the realm of reality in the automotive displays at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, once a fantastical flight of fancy that promised a Jetson’s lifestyle was just around the corner.
But now when the show opens Jan. 5, CES will spotlight transportation technologies that are here and now, like autonomous tractors and electric cars. After the high-profile collapse of Argo AI in October, the former self-driving unit of Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG, the coin of the realm at this year’s CES is profit, not potential. Car companies and startups alike will show technologies they expect will provide a return on investment in the near-term, not in some hazy tomorrow that may never come.