The CES exhibition this year showcased a fierce competition among AI and chip companies, unveiling groundbreaking advancements in smart cabins and autonomous driving. Chinese brands played a prominent role, captivating global attention with their cutting-edge technologies.

From January 7th to 10th, the 2025 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2025) took place as scheduled in Las Vegas, USA. AI technology and its derivative products continued to steal the spotlight, much like in 2024. However, with a subtle twist, this year's CES embraced the theme "DIVE IN," signifying a deep dive into the realm of AI, aligning perfectly with current market trends in technological innovation.

As a grand gathering for the global tech industry, CES 2025 attracted numerous technology companies eager to exhibit their latest innovations. Focusing on these novel products, it's evident that smart cabins, autonomous driving, operating systems, and other automotive-related fields remained the hottest topics at this year's CES. From a corporate standpoint, the number of Chinese exhibitors at CES 2025 reached an all-time high. External statistics indicate that nearly 1,500 companies from China (including Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) participated, accounting for almost one-third of all exhibitors. Among them, nearly 300 companies introduced automotive-related innovations. So, which cutting-edge technologies deserve our attention? A reporter from "Auto Industry Review" has compiled a list.

Smart Cabin "Screens" Set the Stage

Firstly, in the realm of smart cabins, many companies at CES 2025 focused on in-vehicle screens, making them a major attraction of the event.

BOE unveiled a series of cutting-edge smart cabin technologies under the "HERO" plan. Highlights include a 44.8-inch PHUD (panoramic heads-up display) smart cabin, integrating advanced oxide technology and 2850 finely zoned Mini LED backlight technology to achieve an industry-leading 9K ultra-high resolution, 7000nits (10% area) peak brightness, and a million-level ultra-high contrast ratio. Other innovations include a 17.3-inch ultra-thin ceiling screen and the industry's first 15.05-inch flexible OLED Edge 3D central control display, demonstrating the evolution of in-vehicle display technology.

Continental, on the other hand, introduced the "Windows Projection" solution, combining high-performance mini projectors, fully dimmable side windows, and intelligent software to enable projections onto exterior car windows. For instance, the vehicle can detect when it's heading to a stadium for a game and suggest displaying team logos and relevant information on the side glass. Additionally, it can show the vehicle's charging status and route information to confirm charging station locations along the route before boarding.

"Our window projection display solution projects high-quality content onto the vehicle's side windows, which can be personalized based on the driver's lifestyle, thereby deepening their connection with the brand," explained Pavel Prouza, head of the User Experience Business Group at Continental.

BMW Group premiered its next-generation super-sensory smart cabin at CES 2025 - BMW's Panoramic iDrive. This system encompasses four in-car interaction interfaces: horizon panoramic display, 3D heads-up display, super-sensory intelligent steering wheel, and central control towards the driver. The horizon panoramic display revolutionizes traditional instrument panels by projecting driving information onto a black coating below the windshield, offering a larger area, higher precision, and a farther field of view. Paired with the newly released 3D heads-up display system, it projects navigation and autonomous driving information within the driver's optimal field of view, achieving seamless coordination to present key information at a glance. These technologies are expected to debut in BMW's next-generation models by the end of 2025.

TCL, another renowned Chinese tech brand, participated in CES 2025 with the largest booth among Chinese exhibitors. TCL announced a new printed OLED technology that uses inkjet printing to precisely apply luminescent materials onto OLED displays. This technology matches mainstream OLED display performance and image quality but boasts a simpler production process than traditional vapor deposition OLED, offering significant cost advantages.

Furthermore, Chinese brands like Tianma Microelectronics, Visionox, Apex Technologies, AU Optronics, Innolux, and Foryou Automotive Electronics showcased multiple cutting-edge in-vehicle display products at CES 2025, including 3D AR HUD PGU, integrated IRIS HUD, 3D instruments, hidden smart interior displays, etc., comprehensively demonstrating the robust capabilities and innovative achievements of Chinese supply chain enterprises in the in-vehicle display field.

Automakers Rush to Embrace AI

Beyond in-vehicle screen innovations, some automakers introduced AI technology into smart cabins, focusing their R&D efforts on enhancing user experience.

For instance, Honda showcased its self-developed ASIMO OS. This system not only perceives user preferences and predicts behavior through adaptive learning, providing a human-vehicle integrated driving experience, but also supports the management of the vehicle's electronic control unit, covering areas like infotainment systems and autonomous driving technology, serving as the "smart brain" of Honda's 0 series electric vehicles. According to Honda, models equipped with this system could be launched as early as 2026 for global sales.

Geely Automobile unveiled the "Smart Car Full-Domain AI" technology system at CES 2025. Through the AIOS scheduling engine, Geely's "Smart Car Full-Domain AI" integrates the requirements and sensory data of various devices such as vehicles, mobile phones, tablets, wearable devices, smart homes, and other intelligent entities. Currently, a series of AI technology achievements based on this system, including AI Galaxy Elf, Flyme Auto smart cabin, boundless space, AI cloud power, AI picture book, AI sentinel, Wow wallpaper, etc., have been applied to products like Galaxy E8, Galaxy E5, and Galaxy Starship 7. It's revealed that the latest AI achievements developed based on "Smart Car Full-Domain AI," such as end-to-end voice large models and AI digital chassis, will gradually be integrated into Geely's new models this year.

Great Wall Motors proposed a new AI development concept, the Agent of Space & Language (ASL) large model, marking a new era of intelligent evolution for the company. According to Wu Huixiao, CTO of Great Wall Motors, at the ASL stage, vehicles can achieve omnidirectional and three-dimensional information processing and intelligent decision-making, truly customizing unique experiences based on destination characteristics, passenger needs and preferences, as well as traffic and environmental information, making smart cars true AI agents. Currently, Great Wall Motors is accelerating the evolution of end-to-end large models for intelligent driving while also developing other types of vertical domain large models, exploring more possibilities for AI agents.

Hyundai Motor and NVIDIA announced a strategic partnership during CES 2025 to accelerate advanced AI technology development. Hyundai Motor will leverage NVIDIA's accelerated computing and AI Enterprise software to manage massive data, enabling the secure development and training of AI models for various applications. Additionally, Hyundai Motor will utilize NVIDIA's Omniverse platform to develop physical AI and digital twin applications to simulate its factories, improving production efficiency and quality while reducing costs.

Chip Manufacturers Flex Their Muscles

Enhancing user experience is inseparable from the support of chip companies. At CES 2025, numerous chip manufacturers showcased their strengths, becoming another major attraction of the event.

NVIDIA announced that its next-generation automotive chip, Thor, has entered full production. The top-tier version of this chip boasts a maximum computing power of 2000 TOPS, nearly eight times that of the current Orin chip. ZEEKR has officially confirmed that future models will be equipped with the NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor intelligent driving chip. Additionally, NVIDIA announced its collaboration plan with Toyota Motor Corporation.

Toyota Motor Corporation will build its next-generation vehicles on the NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Orin platform, running the safety-certified NVIDIA Drive OS operating system. Furthermore, autonomous driving technology company Aurora and Continental also announced long-term strategic partnerships with NVIDIA to deploy large-scale driverless trucks powered by NVIDIA DRIVE.

Similar to NVIDIA, Chinese company Black Sesame Technologies presented a series of the latest solutions in smart cabins and cabin-driving integration. During CES 2025, Black Sesame Technologies showcased domain controllers, software applications, and overall solutions developed by OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and ecological partners based on the Wudang C1200 family for mass production applications. These include cross-domain fusion solutions developed by multiple leading enterprises like Aptiv, Continental, Joyson, and Banma, as well as multiple cross-domain fusion and high-level intelligent driving domain controllers developed by domestic and foreign Tier 1 suppliers and automakers based on C1296 and C1236. Additionally, the Wudang series of chips support applications like vehicle data exchange, large models, and audio algorithms. Black Sesame Technologies also demonstrated the vast potential of the Wudang C1200 family in embodied intelligence.

Moreover, the Huashan A2000 chip, recently released in December 2024, was exhibited at CES. This chip employs a 7nm process, is equipped with the industry's largest NPU core - Black Sesame's "Jiushao," and utilizes two innovative technologies: the new-generation general AI tool chain BaRT and the new-generation dual-chiplet interconnection technology BLink, to support its intelligent driving capabilities. This was the chip's debut public appearance.

LiDAR Marches Towards "Thousand Lines"

Apart from chips, autonomous driving technology and its related achievements were also a highlight of this year's CES. At CES 2025, providers of autonomous driving LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) environmental perception solutions fiercely competed, all aiming for higher line counts and unveiling multiple in-vehicle "thousand-line" radars.

RoboSense launched the "world's first 1080-line ultra-long-range digital LiDAR" - RoboSense EM4 at the exhibition. This radar, the first product of RoboSense's new digital architecture EM platform, features up to 1080 lines, a detection range of up to 600 meters, and an imaging capability of 25.92 million points per second, achieving a maximum angular resolution of 0.050°×0.025° and ultra-long-range measurement. It provides vehicles with 1080P three-dimensional perception capabilities, enhancing high-level intelligent driving and fully autonomous driving performance.

Hesai Technology, another domestic LiDAR manufacturer, didn't lag behind. At CES 2025, it showcased the AT1440, the world's highest line count LiDAR with 1440 lines, and the Hesai FTX, the world's widest-field-of-view automotive-grade pure solid-state LiDAR. This marked the official debut of Hesai Technology's next-generation automotive-grade products.

The AT1440 is equipped with Hesai's fourth-generation self-developed chip and adopts more advanced high-efficiency photosensitivity and ultra-high parallel processing technology, capable of outputting extremely high-definition image-level point clouds, which are over 30 times better than current mainstream automotive LiDARs, setting a new benchmark for automotive-grade LiDAR. The Hesai FTX is a high-performance blind-spot radar that works in coordination with long-range main radars. It employs pure solid-state electronic scanning technology to achieve a maximum field of view of 180°×140°, enabling high-definition scanning of blind spots and providing panoramic perception support for L3/L4 intelligent driving.

In the realm of in-vehicle technology, Wanji Technology made its international debut with its ultra-thin 760 in-vehicle LiDAR. Tailored for high-level assisted driving (ADAS), this semi-solid-state LiDAR boasts a genuine 192-line scanning capability, achieving a range of up to 200 meters on a 10% reflective surface and a maximum detectable distance of 300 meters. With an ultra-wide field of view spanning 120 degrees horizontally and 25 degrees vertically, it delivers resolutions of 0.15° and 0.13°, ensuring high-precision detection, all while maintaining a sleek body thickness of just 24-30mm. Furthermore, Wanji Technology presented its 750 all-solid-state blind-spot LiDAR, engineered for low-speed autonomous driving. This LiDAR features an all-solid-state design, a vast field of view of 140°×70°, and a maximum range of 50 meters (30 meters at 10% reflectivity), already seeing practical applications in low-speed autonomous scenarios by several domestic enterprises, effectively addressing the "blind spot" challenge during low-speed maneuvers.

In simpler terms, the higher the line count of a LiDAR product, the greater the number of lasers it employs, and the more robust its overall performance. A "thousand-line" LiDAR signifies the presence of up to a thousand laser lines in the vertical direction, capable of simultaneously emitting and receiving laser pulses, representing the pinnacle of LiDAR precision and performance.

Considering the current market dynamics, LiDAR continues to be a pivotal sensor in enabling domestic automakers to deploy urban NOA functions. Unlike visual solutions, LiDAR excels in night-time recognition, offers superior accuracy, and can identify a broader array of objects, thereby strengthening the robustness of intelligent driving systems.

However, the relatively high cost of implementation remains a significant barrier to the rapid adoption of LiDAR. This hurdle will need to be gradually addressed through technological advancements, mass production, and supply chain optimization. Simultaneously, fostering close collaboration between automakers and LiDAR suppliers to co-develop market-tailored product solutions can effectively expedite the integration of LiDAR into vehicles and reduce costs.

Notably, at this year's CES, the aforementioned LiDAR companies also showcased their latest strides in embodied intelligence. Various robots integrated with cutting-edge LiDAR technology took center stage, vividly demonstrating the boundless potential of AI-LiDAR fusion. The buzz generated by these robots at CES might serve as a harbinger of the future trajectory of the LiDAR industry – perhaps its synergy with embodied intelligence extends far beyond the automotive sector itself.

Note: This article was originally published in the "Hot Topic Tracking" section of the February 2025 issue of "Auto Industry Review" magazine. Stay informed.

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Article: Auto Review

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