Automakers drive their way into tech event
Popular Las Vegas showcase a great way to display vehicles’ technology
Mark Fields remembers being treated like a Neanderthal when he joined Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to introduce the Sync incar infotainment system.
The skeptical tech press in 2007 couldn’t seem to understand what Fields, who then ran Ford businesses throughout the Americas, was doing at a show known for cutting-edge phones and video games, he said. Coming from old industry, he jokes that they asked, “Why aren’t your knuckles dragging across the floor?”
Now cars are among the main attractions at the International CES that opens Jan. 6 featuring vehicles with touchscreen dashboards and others controlled by smartwatches. Fields is making a triumphant return as Ford’s chief executive officer, where he’ll deliver a speech about the dawn of the connected-car era. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche will be there, too, discussing the latest concept of a self-driving Mercedes-Benz. They join a record 10 automakers showing their wares on an exhibit space the size of three football fields.
“CES has become a major launch point for a lot of the big automakers,” said Mark Boyadjis, technology analyst for researcher IHS in Minnetonka, Minnesota. “CES is a way for them to get on a global stage for technology.”
The evolution of Ford’s CES exhibit tells the story of the automotive ascent at the trade show that attracts 140,000 visitors. Five years ago, Ford displayed its new Taurus on a 20foot-by-20-foot piece of carpet. This year, Ford has a two-storey display with five vehicles, a wall of digital screens and private offices for conducting business.
“We’ve come a long way from a single car on a carpet,” said Alan Hall, a Ford spokesman who manned that first basic booth.
BMW, in its second year at CES, has a sprawling exhibit that includes a fleet of more than 100 cars and covers 57,475 square feet (5,300 square metres) of space just outside the Las Vegas Convention Center.