Five cutting-edge car innovations from CES 2025

LAS VEGAS: The Geneva Motor Show is history, the German IAA exhibition has not recovered since moving from Frankfurt to Munich and the Paris Motor Show is a mere regional showcase for the local vehicle industry.

It seems a lot of the automotive action is now in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show CES which just ended after its Jan 7-10 run.

Car expos as showcases for engine manufacturers, designers and driving dynamics experts are old hat anyway. Today's motorists are more interested in getting plenty of infotainment bytes for their bucks rather than just brake horsepower.

Admittedly German manufacturers are being unusually coy this year and only BMW is making a big splash in Las Vegas with a new panoramic dashboard. Meanwhile Asian suppliers are showing more new cars than at the recent trade fairs in Munich or Paris.

These five innovations from the CES could shape the future of cars.

1. Sony: Once driving itself becomes a minor matter, you no longer need a vehicle manufacturer to build a car. Japanese entertainment giant Sony seems to be trying to prove this point in Las Vegas by unveiling the Afeela 1.

The premium-priced car first broke cover a while back but at CES Sony announced the final specs, pricing and delivery details for its first EV.

With a price sticker from $89,000 for the entry model, the car will initially be launched on the US market in the middle of next year and then make its way around the world.

2. Honda: Honda also announced two upcoming zero-emission models in its new O-Series, a limousine and an SUV. The Japanese manufacturer says it wants to focus on cutting-edge infotainment tech, which is why the cars get wraparound screens across the entire cockpit and in front of the rear seat.

The twin motors have a combined output of around 353 kW/480 hp and the battery with some 90 kWh is enough to propel the car for roughly 500 kilometres.

Honda says they mark a new start for the company in the EV segment and up to a dozen variants are in the pipeline until the end of the decade.

Both models are some five metres long and are based on underpinning similar to those of the Afeela 1 developed together with Sony. The avowed aim is to offer highly reliable automated driving backed by Honda’s Level 3 automated driving technology.

3. Xpeng : Flying cars have had a hard time getting off the ground in recent years which has prompted Chinese company Xpeng to go its own way.

The Xpeng modular flying car dubbed the Land Aircraft Carrier comes from the firm'a AeroHT subsidiary and is due to go into series production from next year.

With over 3,000 order commitments already secured, this modular flying car could become the world's first mass-produced vehicle of its kind.

The carrier ground vehicle or "mothership" houses and transports the air module to a launch site, where it deploys for vertical take-off. Upon landing, the module relocates itself seamlessly, allowing for a smooth return to driving.

The aircraft looks like a large drone with a cabin for two occupants. The maker said it supports flights of up to 1,000 km on a full charge.

The "mothership" can also juice up the aircraft's battery from 30 to 80% in 18 minutes. The flying car will initially sell in China only.

4. Zeekr : Compared to the Zeekr Mix made by a subsidiary of China's Geely, the electric VW ID.Buzz van is almost old-school. The genuinely variable van has multiple seat set-ups for up to six people along with a cool mismatched door arrangement.

This consists of a regular driver’s door plus a sliding rear door on one side, and two sliding doors on the other side that peel away from each other to create a giant opening which harks back to the first VW camper buses.

The 4.70 metre long Zeekr is a five-seater MPV for families and campers who want easy access and lots of features. Google subsidiary Waymo seems to have recognised its potential and Zeekr has announced a specially equipped version for the company to use as a robotaxi.

5 BMW: It will be almost another year before BMW finally brings the much-vaunted New Generation cars to market, so in Las Vegas the Bavarians offered a first glimpse of their fancy new head-up display. It has a panoramic array of features at eye level across the entire width of the windscreen and uses 3D graphics and augmented reality.

The ultra-sensory smart cockpit consists of BMW Panoramic iDrive and the new-generation BMW Operating System X along with a steering wheel with haptic buttons. Panoramic iDrive will find its way into BMW models at the end of 2025.

"The new BMW Operating System X is the intelligent nerve centre of the next-generation ultra-sensory smart cockpit, once again setting the industry benchmark for multimodal human-computer interaction," said BMW management board member Frank Weber.