Oddball Cars and Car Tech of CES 2019: Some of Them Make Sense

LAS VEGAS — Call it the Car Electronics Show. The honchos at CES were so remote from tech in the early 1990s that somebody else grabbed the CES.org URL before it could be landed by what was until recently the Consumer Electronics Show. Now they’ve gotten religion so much that CES 2019 has become as much about cars, car tech and future transportation as any other form of consumer electronics.
Here’s our take on the more, ah, unusual — can we say “weird-ass” online? — aspects of CES 2019. Weird is not bad. Hyundai’s walking-and-wheeled vehicle represents serious thinking outside the Transformers box.
CES is the most important auto show of January if you’re looking for where the auto industry is headed. Almost nobody at CES believes (yet) that the auto world revolves around them, whereas the Detroit auto show (formally, North American International Auto Show) gets caught up in extolling Michigan to the detriment of international automakers and eventually the detriment of Detroit, as fewer take part each year. Michigan has a lot to be proud of: It remains a powerhouse of engineering and academic brainpower, and virtually every one of the world’s automakers has an engineering, R&D, or procurement outpost in the Wolverine State. But Silicon Valley is where much of the leading autonomous-driving work is done, and Southern California sets the styles in cars, clothes, surfing, and entertainment that the world follows.
One of the wackiest moments came at one of the biggest booths — that of Audi, sited more or less where Faraday (No?) Future was at a previous CES. In addition to showing its new e-Tron EV, Audi demonstrated the stationary car as home theater, or Audi Immerservice In-Car Entertainment. The parked car bounces up and down on its suspension in sync with special effects. Drive-in theaters are all but gone 90 years after they first appeared. But the phrase may live on: “If this car’s a-rockin’, don’t come knockin’.”
Check back Tuesday for our coverage of the top cars and trends of NAIAS 2019. A diminished Detroit show is still pretty important, especially for the vehicles that sell well in the heartland: pickups, big crossovers, and American muscle cars.
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