CES 2016: Automotive technology explosion

"I have no doubt that the auto industry will change more in the next five to 10 years than it has in the last 50," said Mary Barra, chairman and CEO of General Motors, during her first keynote speech at CES 2016 in Las Vegas. "The convergence of connectivity, vehicle electrification and evolving customer needs demand new solutions."

Barra unveiled the new Chevrolet Bolt electric car at the Westgate as part of her presentation. GM is partnering with LG Chem in South Korea, which will provide the integrated battery packs, control electronics and electric motor for this new vehicle that can travel more than 200 miles before needing to recharge.

The vehicle will employ a battery pack that can store 60 kilowatt-hours of energy capacity. The electric motor can produce 150 kilowatts of power, capable of providing 200 horsepower to the front wheels of the Bolt with 266 pound-feet of torque. The Bolt can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in under seven seconds.

Recharging time for the battery pack is just one hour using a DC Quick Charge system. Using a J1772 AC Level 2 charging system overnight can recharge the battery pack in about nine hours.

"We see the Bolt EV as more than just a car," said Barra. "It is an upgradeable platform for new technologies."

The Bolt will be compatible with automotive apps from Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Production of the Bolt electric car will begin this year and be available to consumers in Chevrolet dealerships as a 2017 model.

GM also announced a partnership with Lyft to develop autonomous, electric vehicles for its ride-share business model.

Nine out of the 10 top worldwide automotive manufacturers exhibited their latest innovations in the North Hall and surrounding parking lots of the Las Vegas Convention Center during CES.

Faraday Future unveiled its new FFZero1 electric concept car. The concept car highlighted futuristic design features that will be manifested in the company's product line and built at a planned factory in Apex Industrial Park in North Las Vegas by 2018.

Volkswagen Chairman Herbert Deiss was also a keynote speaker during CES, where he introduced the BUDD-e concept, an electric-powered microbus with a range exceeding 300 miles. The vehicle employed Volkswagen's Modular Electric Toolkit platform equipped with two electric motors, one for each axle, to drive the Microbus wheels with electricity stored in a 101 kilowatt-hour battery pack. Electric power train technologies within the MEB platform should become part of the Volkswagen Group product lines by 2019, including Porsche and Audi divisions.

According to a Volkswagen Group press release, "This architecture heralds a fundamental change in electric cars and ushers in a revolution in automotive technology, leaving today's fossil-fuel powered internal combustion engines and drivetrains in the past."

Gesture recognition, the ability to use gestures to unlock doors and interact with onboard apps, is a new user interface that may soon be available on models of the Volkswagen e-Golf electric car.

"Zero-emission, connected, self-driving and a new definition of man's best friend, that's what the car of the future looks like," Diess said. "The car of the future will make a difference. It will make the world a better place. And Volkswagen will make sure that most people can afford it."

The Porsche Mission-E concept car also employs a battery pack exceeding 100 kilowatt-hours that the company claims can be recharged in just 15 minutes from a special high-power recharging station capable of producing 200 kilowatts. At this time, no infrastructure for ultra-fast DC charging stations yet exists in Europe or North America.

By comparison, the Tesla Motors Supercharger network can deliver 120 kilowatts of electric power to recharge an 80 kilowatt-hour battery pack inside the Model S or Model X within about one hour.

Because the BUDD-e was a concept vehicle showcase, a production version of the VW Microbus was not announced by Deiss or the Volkswagen Group at this time.

BMW offered test rides in its i3 electric car and i8 plug-in hybrid electric sports car. The company also showcased its connectivity features with Samsung that integrated a smart car with a smart home, as well as many other connected devices that the car owner may own through the Internet of Things.

Toyota showcased a new fuel cell concept car while its sister company Lexus showed a scale model of how vehicle-to-vehicle communication could enable faster traffic engagement at street intersections while also preventing accidents.

Nissan announced a partnership with Microsoft to enable more cloud-connected apps for the Nissan LEAF electric car and Infiniti models.

Ford and Alphabet (Google) announced a partnership to join forces to accelerate the development of autonomous, self-driving vehicle technologies.

Autonomous vehicle technology has received a lot of buzz this year, especially after Tesla Motors added more advanced autopilot features to its Model S and Model X vehicles that beefed up existing cruise control capabilities.

There are several different levels of autonomous driving experiences as defined by the Society of Automotive Engineers International and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: from no automation, in which the driver is fully in control of the vehicle; to partial automation, in which the car drives itself but expects the driver to intervene when required; to full automation, in which a vehicle drives itself without intervention by a passenger or driver.

Automotive executives estimated the timeline would be five to 15 years for fully autonomous driving to become a reality for consumers.

The software and hardware building blocks for secure, reliable autonomous systems are being developed, tested and certified by companies like QNX, whose CAR platform and Neutrino operating system are being used by automotive manufacturers to integrate advanced driver assistance systems into their platforms. The company highlighted vision and sensor systems from software developers that are compatible with semiconductor chips from Nvidia, TI, Intel and other providers.

These technologies enable vehicle-to-vehicle communications, as well as vehicle-to-infrastructure communications for enhanced safety and vehicle autonomy.

Mobileye has been a leader in vision recognition systems. The company uses multiple cameras coupled with software algorithms, to continuously interpret roadside shapes and images quickly enough to enable safety systems to react in real time while driving.

At CES, Delphi and Valeo offered autonomous vehicle test rides that showcased different levels of autonomous driving.

By coupling light-based radar systems with a forward camera, an advanced driver assistance system could recognize images and shapes, as well as the distance of the shapes from the car. Valeo demonstrated how distance measurements were highlighted in software by different color levels that change to bright red when the vehicle was too close to a pedestrian or another vehicle.

Kia exhibited an electric Soul EV that has been part of its autonomous driving program, approved for testing on Nevada roadways. The state was the first in the nation to allow autonomous vehicles to navigate its open roads, but only with a driver sitting behind the wheel, ready to intervene manually if there is a testing glitch.

Daimler showcased its Freightliner autonomous truck technology that also is being tested on Nevada highways. The company drew worldwide attention during a rollout ceremony this past year when the Freightliner big rig pulled a trailer across Hoover Dam autonomously with Gov. Brian Sandoval riding in the front passenger seat. Daimler will be installing advanced sensors into cars sooner than expected to derive real-world data about driver behavior that can help these companies develop autonomous driving capabilities for their vehicle electronic systems.

As the intelligent software and sensor hardware technologies mature together, machine learning can help automotive designers create the next solution and application for advanced driver assistance systems, then roll the new feature out to an existing customer car as an upgrade without necessarily raising prices.

So, if you see a red Nevada license plate with a "sideways 8" infinity symbol on it while driving highway 95 between Las Vegas and Reno, look inside the window to see if the driver has hands on the steering wheel or not.