Sweden at CES: Driving Innovation and Mobility Forward

Following the Volvo Group’s keynote speech, Team Sweden hosted a Swedish "fika," where Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch delivered an inspiring welcome to an enthusiastic crowd. Later that day, hundreds of Swedes and Americans gathered at a post-conference event in downtown Las Vegas to exchange insights from the show floor. 

Over the years, CES has grown into one of the most important events for mobility industry players to showcase their offerings.  

Unsurprisingly, Waymo stood out, presenting all its current and planned vehicle versions, including the Zeekr RT. Zoox has expanded its presence and is now on the verge of launching a public, commercial service in Las Vegas. Another exhibitor, May Mobility, is also making strides and announced an intriguing high-capacity vehicle set to debut next year. New entrants included Japanese Tier IV and Applied Intuition, while Holon showcased its Mobileye-powered vehicle, which is slated for deployment in Hamburg. 

There were fewer trucks this year, although Volvo exhibited its VNL Autonomous used as a vehicle platform for the new collaboration between NVIDIA, Continental and Aurora. However, for fans of commercial heavy vehicles, autonomy in the off-road domain was prominently featured in the booths of John Deere, Caterpillar, Komatsu and Oshkosh.

On the legal front, the NHTSA has introduced a new voluntary framework for autonomous vehicles (AV) aimed at easing the path toward driverless cars without conventional controls. However, it also introduces new data reporting requirements.  

With the new United States administration taking office, it remains to be seen what will happen to this proposal and the broader federal approach to AV regulation and, even more so to the electrification of vehicles in general.  

Meanwhile, Beijing has introduced new standards for AV deployment, further highlighting that the competition between AV giants in China and the U.S. is not just about technology but also policy and regulation.  

As the race between China and the United States in AV technology accelerates, it’s clear that innovation, regulation, and strategic positioning will continue to shape the future of mobility on a global scale. The one question that remains is – where is Europe in all this? From a Future Mobility perspective, this signals that there are now even more reasons for Swedish innovation actors to connect to actors in the United States. 

Connect with Future Mobility

With dedicated resources in both countries, the Future Mobility initiative works to lower the barriers to collaboration by offering three types of support to organizations in Sweden or the United States interested in partnering on sustainable mobility projects:

• Providing inspiration and knowledge related to collaborations between Sweden and the United States
• Offering matchmaking services to help identify relevant innovation partners
• Guiding towards potential funding sources

 A certain budget is also available for co-funding promising projects.

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