The West Hall of the vast Las Vegas Convention Centre was the epicentre of a small earthquake earlier this month. Dedicated to the automotive technology unveiled at CES 2026, the world’s largest consumer tech show, it felt less like a showcase and more like a high-stakes contest for industrial leadership. The dominant players came armed with scale and a new roadmap for where power now sits in mobility.
Hyundai made that shift tangible. Its stand anchored the hall through size, standing out via the nightclub-style lines of people waiting to be admitted. Inside, robots shared space with autonomous delivery platforms, industrial mobility systems and passenger vehicles, all linked by a common software and control narrative. Hyundai subsidiary Boston Dynamics drew crowds with its machines, but they were part of a wider display that treated vehicles as one class of intelligent hardware among many.
That attitude set the tone for much of the hall. Automotive technology at CES has moved away from speculative concepts toward systems designed for deployment. Exhibitors spoke less about future models and more about computing architectures and long-term software platforms. This was visible in the way stands were laid out: more screens showed system diagrams than lifestyle videos.
Great Wall Motor (GWM), makers of Haval and Tank cars, cut through that abstraction with a blunt reminder of what still pulls people across a show floor: vehicles. Full-sized production models dominated its stand. In a hall crowded with simulations and diagrams, GWM’s display required almost no mediation. People responded instinctively to metal, scale and form, opening doors and examining interiors.
It served as a reminder that manufacturing capability remains central to automotive relevance, even as software reshapes how vehicles are built, updated and sold.
A similar emphasis on practicality surfaced at the Oshkosh stand, though in a very different category. Heavy-duty vehicles designed for refuse collection, airport operations and emergency services filled the space. Autonomous driving here focused on defined routes and controlled environments. Oshkosh demonstrated sensor systems used for obstacle detection and contamination monitoring, alongside fleet management software designed to optimise routing and maintenance schedules.
Nearby, John Deere delivered a similar message: its stand centred on the X9 Series combine harvester, one of the largest machines on the CES show floor, fitted with dense arrays of cameras, sensors and GNSS receivers. Visitors watched simulations showing how the system adjusts harvesting parameters in real time and switches into autonomous operation for field work. It was a reminder that some of the most advanced applied automation now sits on farms rather than highways.
These displays drew sustained attention because they addressed clear use cases. The machines on show looked ready for work, for one revealing reason: their working conditions impose boundaries that software can realistically manage, unlike the complexities that still keep autonomous cars from the mainstream.
Not that the conventional manufacturers weren’t trying. In an independent stand outside the West Hall, BMW focused on in-car software and interface systems that will underpin its next generation of vehicles.
It showed how these systems behave in practice, walking visitors through interaction flows, over-the-air update processes and the way driver assistance features integrate with navigation and vehicle settings. The emphasis was on continuity of experience, showing how new software layers fit into established driving and design philosophies.
Behind these visible stands, another layer of influence shaped much of what appeared on the floor. While not overtly present, Nvidia and Qualcomm chips and software platforms underpinned many of the systems on display, from advanced driver assistance to in-vehicle AI workloads.
Autonomy specialists, such as Waymo and Zoox, focused on sensor data and fleet learnings rather than dramatic visuals. This reflected a broader tone at CES 2026. Autonomy featured as a systems management problem rather than a headline-grabbing promise. AI appeared most often as a coordinating layer, managing energy use, driver monitoring, diagnostics and route planning.
Screens remained unavoidable. Cockpits, dashboards, windscreens and passenger displays filled much of the hall. Yet they felt like a given. Attention focused on what those screens represented: software logic and data integration.
Walking the West Hall made it clear that the automotive conversation at CES – and therefore the automotive technology story globally – has changed its narrative. Physical presence and system readiness were prioritised over futurist language.
In short, little of this felt speculative. The future looked like something already under construction.
* Arthur Goldstuck is CEO of World Wide Worx, editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za, and author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI – The African Edge”.