AV dreams meet market realities this week at CES

Five years ago, Jack made his grand entrance. Starting in the heart of Silicon Valley, he traveled 550 miles, mostly along two interstates, before arriving in Las Vegas, where he commanded attention at the annual Consumer Electronics Show.

An uneventful journey. An indelible imprint.

"Jack" was Audi's affectionate name for its autonomous A7 Sportback prototype, one designed to showcase a fledgling technology designed to handle the driving task along long stretches of highway.

His arrival at the show now known as CES would start a new chapter, one that transformed the long-running innovation showcase into a must-attend event for automakers, suppliers and AV-related startups.

CES is now synonymous with self-driving developments. The venue has played as prominent a role in promoting autonomy as the nearby desert, where the initial DARPA challenges, autonomous races staged by the Defense Department, nurtured the embryonic technology.

This year's show will be no different. A smattering of scheduled highlights: Daimler AG Chairman Ola Kallenius will deliver a keynote address, Russian self-driving tech company Yandex will showcase its autonomous driver on public roads around the city and supplier FLIR will show how thermal imaging can help AVs better perceive their environments.

In many respects, CES sets the tone for the industry. Last year, several companies revealed advanced driver-assist technologies spawned in part from their research on driverless vehicles. To some attendees, the emphasis on enhancements of available products that keep humans involved in the driving task was a letdown; it foretold increasing complications in making self-driving vehicles a widespread reality.

Others saw more sizzle than fizzle: The emphasis on driver-assist technology signaled that CES had turned away from hype and toward a focus on real-world, near-term products. Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, which runs CES, said the shift keyed a personal epiphany.

"I remember the projections from CES four or five years ago that by 2021, we'd have autonomous fleets and, obviously, that's not happening as quickly," he said. "There's a lot of barriers."

But in going over its economic projections for various consumer technologies last year, the Consumer Technology Association found it had underestimated the auto electronics sector by roughly a billion dollars.

"It was the biggest delta we made a mistake on for 2018," Shapiro said. "What's happened is that people are going to dealerships and they want all this stuff that is leading up to self-driving. … To me, well, the message was that, 'Wow, people will love this stuff.' "

If CES provides a general benchmark of the industry's progress on driver-assist and self-driving systems, then perhaps the inverse is true: Overall industry benchmark projections reflect the snapshot glances ahead at CES. If that's the case, it may be a while before full autonomy takes hold.

Autonomous vehicles have further to fall into the "trough of disillusionment" on the "Hype Cycle" chart that global consulting company Gartner updates each year. The plunge toward the trough's low point is not necessarily an indication of skepticism about self-driving systems so much as a measure of the gap between hype and widespread deployment. Gartner estimates AVs won't be widely deployed for at least another decade.

Likewise, consulting company PwC says autonomous vehicles intended for robotaxi operations will not reach roads in widespread fashion until after 2030. Brandon Mason, the company's U.S. mobility lead, says automakers have come to more greatly appreciate the risks involved in letting computers take responsibility for driving and realized that technology advancements are still needed to make that happen at scale.

"The reality is sinking in a bit," he said. "Those two things are causing a bit of a pause in terms of the rollout, from a polished-product standpoint."

Moreover, the auto market has crested. A full-fledged recession could spell substantial setbacks for both driver-assist and self-driving technology. But at least for now, that's not a scenario that appears imminent.

PwC projects U.S. light-vehicle sales falling to 16.2 million in 2020 and 15.9 million in 2021, then returning to the 17 million threshold in 2022. That level of volume allows automakers, as the CTA's projection suggested, to get a return on their investments by trickling technologies initially intended for fully autonomous vehicles into advanced driver-assistance systems.

"I think you'll continue to see the rollout of ADAS systems," Mason said. "It's allowing for some return on investment now, and to some degree, you need some of that scale. And it's giving consumers a chance to get a little more comfortable with those."

While the time frames for the driverless future may face a reckoning, the destination remains clear. And Shapiro said the auto industry's ability to sneak a peek at its future has been a long-standing tradition at CES.

Back in the 1970s, long before Audi's Jack arrived, the Electronic Industries Alliance, a previous name of the Consumer Technology Association, issued a prescient report at the show that described what the automotive industry might look like by 2000.

"The big finding was that over half the value of the car will be electronics," Shapiro said. "At the time, that was a startling thing that no one believed. … It was right. You know, the timing is wrong. But the predictions, they were right."