Automotive advancement at CES 2025: What you need to know

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The Venn diagram overlap between the regular tech world and the automotive one is growing, especially as car makers attempt to cram as much technology as possible into today’s cars – enter CES 2025.

CES (formerly Consumer Electronics Show) is one of the world’s longest-running trade shows for new technology, electronics, and products. The annual event is held every January in Las Vegas in the United States, and it's a chance for tech companies to show off their latest wares. But, car manufacturers are becoming the standouts.

We've already detailed releases such as Sony's electric car or BMW's next-generation iDrive, but there were plenty more state-of-the-art technologies that you'll begin seeing in cars of the not-too-distant future.  

Here are the top cutting-edge reveals that we want to highlight out of CES 2025.

BMW Panoramic iDrive

BMW's iDrive infotainment software is considered by many to be a segment benchmark, and the German brand has upped the ante again with its Panoramic iDrive showcase.

Rather than integrating the new operating system solely within an infotainment screen on the dash, Panoramic iDrive uses the lower portion of the windscreen to display important information to the driver and passengers through traditional head-up display technology.

It's a smart expansion of a familiar technology – head-up displays – that extends the capability to include navigation information, speed readouts, and critical car data on a windscreen-width lower panel.

Users are able to customise both the traditional infotainment display and Panoramic iDrive using the touchscreen, sending preferred information from the dashboard screen to the head-up display on the windscreen.

BMW said the new technology will make a debut in the Neue Klasse production cars, expected to be unveiled at the end of 2025.

Sony Afeela 1

Sony has used CES 2025 to finally unveil its near-production-guise electric car in the form of the Afeela 1. Sony began developing a car five years ago together with Honda – which also revealed its own concepts at the show – and the end result looks to combine Honda's car-building skills with Sony's technological know-how.

The Afeela 1 will arrive in left-hand-drive markets first in mid-2026 before expanding to right-hand-drive countries such as Japan by the end of the year.

The large sedan features dual motors that output a combined 360kW and a claimed 483km of driving range in the flagship specification.

Inside, the Afeela 1 is specified with large displays that span A-pillar to A-pillar, while the driver holds a yoke-style steering wheel seen in rivals such as the Tesla Model S and Lexus RZ.

Notably, owners will have the ability to play Playstation games on the main infotainment display.

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Continental window projection

Continental has developed a way of showing high-definition information and content on a car's side windows. Projectors show content directly onto side windows, which are fused with an electrochromic layer, so that passers-by can see as they walk up to the car.

Continental suggests the technology could be used to show an EV's battery status as you're walking up to it, or even identify a car as a rideshare vehicle. More information on a production version was not shared at the show.

The window fully darkens to be able to show content, but can then return to transparent at the click of a button.

Hyundai holographic windscreen display

Hyundai Mobis (a subsidiary of Hyundai) went even further than BMW and its Panoramic iDrive with its holographic windscreen displays that can take up the entire pane of glass.

Developed in conjunction with German optics giant Zeiss, the display projects high-definition information such as speed, maps, navigation, and infotainment content in the driver's view.

However, instead of using a screen that would end up occluding the driver's view, Hyundai Mobis has developed a holographic system that doesn't impede on the windscreen's transparency.

The brand suggests displaying information on the windscreen itself will reduce driver distraction and limit the number of times that a driver would have to check devices or infotainment screens.

It's expected to make a production debut from 2027.

Gentex transparent sunvisors

So much of the technology at CES 2025 revolves around screens and displays, and Gentex's contribution is no different.

Gentex has been developing a way to make sunvisors transparent for the past few years, but has now integrated transparent displays that can show alerts, notifications, and the kind of information usually reserved for a head-up display.

Honda 0 Series prototypes

Honda's 0 Series sub-brand is edging closer to production with new unveils of the Honda 0 SUV and Honda 0 Saloon.

The two models incorporate futuristic, wedge-shaped design details for conventional sedan and SUV body types.

We've previously seen iterations of these concepts and they retain much of the same design we saw at CES last year. However, Honda has been busy readying these cars for production, which is now confirmed for 2026.

The mid-sized Honda 0 SUV will be the first model to launch in North America in the first half of 2026, before expanding sales to Japan and Europe shortly thereafter.

No details on price, drivetrain capabilities, nor power were provided, though we should hear more information on these subjects soon given their imminent launches overseas.

The two models spearhead Honda's 0 Series, which the brand says will underpin seven new models that will launch globally by 2030.

MORE Honda backtracks on 2028 launch for first electric car in Australia

Nvidia partners with Toyota on autonomous driving tech

Technology and chipset manufacturer Nvidia announced a partnership with Toyota to develop autonomous driving platforms.

The car maker will incorporate Nvidia's self-driving technology into its next-generation electric vehicles, which can develop, train, and validate autonomous driving behaviour.

DriveOS is the operating system behind Nvidia's autonomous vehicle platform that promises safe decision-making, real-time AI processing, and seamless integration with a car's computer systems.

Toyota will share the DriveOS capabilities with autonomous transport company Aurora, and Continental, which will manufacture the driverless trucks on Aurora’s behalf.

Separately, Nvidia is developing a new artificial intelligence model named Cosmos that’s set to reduce the cost of developing and training self-driving modules. The technology uses a “photo-realistic” video that obeys the laws of physics to teach self-driving technologies how to react in a given situation.

This video content is generated from a text description, thereby reducing the costs that would otherwise be associated with placing cars on the road and capturing real-time video footage for the self-driving systems to learn from.

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