Autotech and connectivity: A tale of two cities at CES and MWC

This is an exciting time of the year for anyone interested in connectivity and the automotive industry.

It is the midpoint between the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. It’s a time when everyone is trying to digest all the automotive announcements and trends that emerged at CES (now one of the largest automotive shows) and what, if anything, to anticipate about automotive at MWC.

The Las Vegas Convention Center’s new West Hall was the home to 300 automotive related exhibitors and around 150 automotive announcements were made. Keynote speeches headlined new concept cars, such as BMW’s iDee (digital emotional experience) concept car with a new operating system, advanced voice control and fully controllable heads-up display (HUD) windscreen. There was the new Peugeot/Stellantis EV concept car with a claimed 500-mile range and the Dodge Ram 1500 revolution battery electric vehicles (BEV), all built on the STLA platform. Honda and Sony announced that their Afeela BEV would start shipping in North America in 2026. Volkswagen teased with its new camouflaged ID.7 BEV which will also have an AR based HUD.

Qualcomm, not content with a continued string of announcements about who is using their platform, including the above mentioned Afeela, decided to show its own concept vehicle. The vehicle showcased the company’s Snapdragon Digital Chassis solution, together with technologies from an ecosystem of partners, to demonstrate the ability to deliver immersive entertainment experiences, driver assistance and enhanced safety. The platform will also allow the new partnership between Qualcomm and Safesforce.com to showcase how the chip-to-cloud continuum can transform the automotive industry.

The underlying theme to emerge from CES is the firm establishment of the software defined vehicle (SDV) concept within the automotive industry, based on platforms that have huge amounts of onboard processing power and intelligence. These platforms are enabling the automotive automakers to accelerate the development and introduction of BEVs, update their internal combustion engine (ICE) portfolios and introduce over the air updates. This constitutes the basis of an industry transformation of its existing business model.

All of this relies on connectivity. However, as Mike Dano, a colleague at a sister publication, Light Reading, notes, he went looking for 5G at CES and it was conspicuous by its absence. The speculation is that, in the US, 5G is already the default technology in all new phones.

So, what is the global state of 5G at the start of 2023? According to the GSA, the global suppliers’ association, there are currently about 1Bn 5G subscribers globally (about 15% of all smartphone users) on 243 commercial 5G networks. In addition, there are another 515 network operators looking at, testing and planning 5G infrastructure. It is estimated that between now and 2025, the mobile industry will spend $650Bn on 5G capital expenditure.

However, there is a catch. Most of these subscribers are on what is known as non-standalone 5G. This is where the 5G new radios (5G NR) have been attached to the existing 4G LTE core network which means that the full potential of 5G, in terms of speed and features, is not yet fully available. To gain the full advantage of 5G NR requires 5G standalone (5G SA) which needs the introduction of a 5G cloud based virtualized network core. Currently, there are only 36 network operators in 21 countries that have this capability. T-Mobile in the US has had a 5G SA network operational since August 2020 and it continues to claim to be the only totally national SA network.

To read the complete article, visit TU-Automotive.