I’ve heard my industry colleagues say that CES 2026 was “slow” on the automotive front. Well, I still walked at least five miles a day to cover the biggest tech trade show, had dozens of conversations with top executives from around the world, and then came home with the flu. (I’m on the mend, but thanks for asking.) I’d say he’s been pretty busy.
But while CES The emergence of new electric cars has been significantly lower, and should have erased any doubts that the war is on for the future of self-driving cars. One company in particular seems to be everywhere on this front.
Welcome back to Critical materialsYour go-to source for the most important news driving the future of transportation. On today’s agenda: We check in on Nvidia’s rise in autonomous driving. Plus, Polestar has some wins after almost two years, and Stellantis is figuring out what’s next after killing off its hybrid models. Let’s dig.
25%: Nvidia’s ChatGPT moment for self-driving cars
Image via: Nvidia
At CES last week, automakers, startups and suppliers alike participated Show the latest and greatest In software, chips, radar, cameras, lidar – all things that are seen as necessary to replace human drivers.
One subject has run through several major independence announcements: Nvidia. Not just with potato chips either, but with Albamayoa new family of open source AI models, simulation tools, and datasets designed to train self-driving cars.
With every car and robo-taxi company interested in chasing advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and eventually full autonomy, the tech giant is essentially saying: “Come with us, and we’ll do the hard part when it comes to AI.”
The hard part is manually training these cars to drive themselves, a daunting task a decade ago, which can now be automated by artificial intelligence to happen very quickly. Here’s what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement:
The ChatGPT moment for physical AI has arrived, when machines begin to understand, think, and act in the real world. Alpamayo brings logic to autonomous vehicles, allowing them to reason through rare scenarios, drive safely in complex environments, and explain their driving decisions.
It’s not hard to see why this makes Nvidia a contender in this space. Not every company that wants to create AI to develop self-driving cars has the time, capital, or programming expertise to do it right. Nvidia offers a ready-made, open-source solution here – provided you use Nvidia GPUs and other hardware. The partnership menu above in that screenshot is from Huang’s keynote speech It shows that this company will be a strong long-term player in this space.
Naturally, this led many to wonder: What about Tesla, which has largely moved away from developing new cars into the world of cars? And pinning its future on AI-powered autonomy? Well, keep in mind that even Tesla is an Nvidia customer as well. That’s what Bloomberg He had to say:
That afternoon, Musk shared a post on X after a user shared a version of Huang’s remarks. “Well, that’s exactly what Tesla does????,” Musk wrote.
The Tesla CEO added that although operating the system most of the time is relatively easy, solving rare and unexpected cases is much more difficult.
The world’s richest man has long claimed that Tesla’s system will have the ability to reason — that is, make human-like decisions in specific traffic scenarios — after a future software update. Earlier this week, his chief AI aide, Ashok Elluswamy, responded to a question about X, saying an additional update would come in the current quarter.
Huang learned of Musk’s response during an interview with Bloomberg TV at CES the next day.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Hwang said, disputing Musk’s claim that he’s already making inferences. “I believe the Tesla stack is the most advanced AV stack in the world.”
As that story notes, Tesla and Nvidia are “fundamentally different companies.” One is a vertically integrated electric vehicle manufacturer with a highly advanced software platform that has been developing camera-only autonomy for over a decade, and the other is a chip manufacturer and software giant that now provides the technology to almost everyone.
But given the sheer scale of what Nvidia can do, and the way it’s growing, it may prove that the leader in self-driving technology won’t be a car company.
50%: Polestar finally finds success — in Europe
Photo by: Polestar
It’s no stretch to say that Geely Group-owned Polestar has gone through a rough patch since launching as a standalone performance electric vehicle brand a decade ago. It was once intended to be a Chinese-European answer to Tesla.
But despite the early popularity of the Polestar 2, the brand has suffered from sluggish sales, a limited lineup (until very recently), product delays, shaky financing, tariffs on some Chinese-made models, and turmoil in the executive ranks. Now it’s facing a slowdown in electric vehicles in the US, all the time It has become almost a non-entity in China.
However, recently, Polestar is seeing some glimmers of hope in Europe, where it has focused many of its recent efforts. here Reuters With pay:
The company’s sales increased by 27% to 15,608 cars sold in the fourth quarter. It sold 60,119 cars over the course of the year.
Over the past year, Polestar has increasingly relied on Europe, which now accounts for about 78% of its sales, as conditions in the United States and China become more difficult due to weak demand and intensifying competition.
“Europe is definitely the heart and we see it doing very well. We go to France and hire Volvo retailers. We bring a French team there and our cars have been very well received,” Volvo CEO Michael Lochseler told Reuters.
Polestar confirms it has more new models in the pipeline, e.g Polestar 6a premium convertible car, and Polestar 7a European-made crossover that should be priced to do battle with the Model Y and others. Perhaps if Polestar can keep building on that continent, it will be well positioned to weather any EV slowdown elsewhere.
75%: Stellantis hybrids are dead. Now what?
As our industry colleagues in drive It was first reported last week that the US-market plug-in hybrids that Stellantis has long promoted — the Jeep Wrangler 4xe, the Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe, and the Chrysler Pacifica PHEV — are now DOA.
The company has been touting its “back to gas” powertrain strategy for months, and since it’s no longer staring down tougher fuel economy rules, it doesn’t need to bother with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). This, despite the fact that the Wrangler 4xe is America’s best-selling plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) model (a fact that says a lot about America, when you think about it). The vehicles also suffered recalls related to fire hazards, and without the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) tax credit, they looked less enticing.
So will Stellantis abandon electrified power? Not exactly, reports Car News; It’s betting big on long-range electric vehicles, which use an EV platform but have a gas engine as a generator:
A Stellantis spokesperson said the recalls did not factor into the decision, instead attributing it to a shift in customer demand. The company will move forward with the expanded electric powertrain technology, which is expected to debut this year in the Jeep Grand Wagoneer and Ram 1500.
“This approach reinforces the company’s commitment to delivering advanced propulsion systems that increase efficiency and provide options from internal combustion to extended-range hybrid and all-electric solutions,” the spokesman said.
Sean Hogan, president of the National Stellantis Dealer Council, said he would rather have cars sold because of their features rather than subsidies.
“I think the market is moving toward a regular hybrid,” Hogan said. “If you just look at the general market, it’s the hybrids that are killing it, not the plug-in hybrid. We hate to lose the powertrain, but I feel like Stellantis is probably making investments in powertrain systems that, in the end, will pay off much better than a plug-in hybrid.”
We’ll see. This also proves that Stellantis will have some education on how EREVs work. Could this strategy pay off better than the compliance vehicles you’ve built so far?
100%: What do you want from the self-driving car boom?
Mercedes MB.Drive Assist Pro Prototype Drive
Photography: Patrick George
What do you really want from the self-driving car boom? Better highway driving for your car? Point-to-point urban driving, like Tesla FSD, but on more cars? Fully automated taxis everywhere? none of the above? Drop us a line in the comments.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
