CES has become the premier event to showcase new automotive technology. In fact, even before the COVID-19 Omicron variant outbreak, it seemed that the automotive segment was drawing the lion's share of in-person attendance at CES. And throughout CES, I will be highlighting some of the technology advancements aimed at Electric Vehicles (EVs), Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS), and Autonomous Vehicles (AV's). Qualcomm announced major enhancements to its product portfolio for ADAS and Autonomous Drive (AD) systems. While the company did not go into detail during its press conference, Qualcomm provided more depth on the announcement during a recent briefing.

This year, chip developer Qualcomm showed off its new Snapdragon Ride platform. The Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride is a car-based computer system that can outfit a vehicle with anything between Level 1 (parking assistance) and Level 5 (no human driver whatsoever) autonomy. At present, Qualcomm is working with almost every major auto manufacturer to bring these systems into consumer cars within the next few years. To learn how Snapdragon Ride works, I met with Qualcomm at CES 2020. The company briefed me on the technology, then gave me a firsthand demo of how the system might work in practice.