2024 Consumer Electronics Show: Hits and Misses
Some great new automotive concepts were on display at the annual Las Vegas exhibition, but also some painfully tired tech
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Walking — and we’re talking walking — through the various exposition halls at the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, one gets a big sampling of all the terrific tech our world’s best and brightest are dreaming up. Conversely, there’s also a lot of chaff in those golden fields of wheat. Incidentally, chaff is defined as “indigestible by humans, [or a] waste material ploughed into the soil or burned.” If only we could be so lucky.
While by no means a definitive list of the best and worst of what this year’s global tech convention had to offer, here’s some hot takes on the highs and lows as I saw it during my 25,000-step campaign.
Hit: Jackery rooftop solar generator/tent
Truck-bed tents are a big thing for the outdoor adventure crowd. In my neighbourhood in North Vancouver, tent-outfitted Tacomas are nearly as plentiful as Tesla Model 3s. Also increasingly popular are portable solar panel arrays for back-country base camps, so the combining of these two emerging trends seems a no-brainer.
A California-based company has done just that, and we’re not talking about flimsy solar panels that you lay on the ground or prop up against your truck. The Jackery rooftop solar generator tent features two retractable solar panels that the company claims can produce up to 1000W, which translates to nearly five kWh per day. The solar array is at the front of the bed-mounted unit, with the tent at the rear.
The solar panels feed a 126-kWh Jackery power station located in the truck bed below the panel/tent, which is capable of 2000 watts of AC output, the equivalent of what it takes to run a 60W fridge for 45 hours; or an electric cooker for an hour. It’s just a concept at the moment, but a company rep told me they hope to bring it to market by the end of the year.
Miss: Lidar, lidar everywhere
Autonomous vehicles are a thing. We get it. But the sheer number of lidar-based tech companies at CES is enough for you to take control of the steering wheel yourself and drive off a cliff.
Yes, there are degrees of expertise and no doubt clever engineering going on at many of the booths that flog this technology, but like the flying cars that hung from the ceiling of the West Hall, the idea of fully autonomous vehicles crowding Canadian city streets seems to be a flight of fancy that is getting further, rather than closer, to a realistic future.
Hit: CAT R1700 XE
Okay, it’s not for mass consumption or even for above-ground exploration, and you’ll most likely have to upgrade your driver’s licence, but this underground mining battery-electric load-haul-dump loader is the stuff of zero-emission digger dreams.
This bad boy’s big shovel has a 15,000-kilogram payload, a peak power output of 335 horsepower, and a full charge time of just 20 minutes — about a coffee break’s worth — using dual CAT MEC500 chargers. It comes factory-ready for autonomous operation, and features a cool feature called “Autodig” for optimization. It’s a first of its kind, and goes a long way — well, some way — in helping mining companies clean up their carbon footprint.
Miss: VinFast VF 3
First off and in all fairness to the Vietnamese electric vehicle automaker, the VinFast VF Wild mid-size pick-up truck it unveiled at 2024 CES was really, really cool, and if the company is smart enough to bring it to Canada, it will find success. The VF 3? Not so much.
Dubbed a “mini-eSUV,” the VF 3 boasts a 2.9-metre (9.5-foot) length, 1.7-metre (5.6-foot) width, and a 1.6-metre (5.2-ft) height, and has a reported driving range of 200 kilometres (124 miles). And it has seating for four! Granted, this microcar might appeal to some global markets, but it’s a non-starter in Canada. Look for the VF Wild at the upcoming Montreal auto show in a couple of weeks’ time; and the VF 3 at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto next month.
Miss: Bollinger Motors
I nearly dropped my clear plastic commemorative CES backpack when I turned a corner and saw this display. Bollinger Motors! Bollocks! I first came across this Michigan-based company about six years ago at the L.A. Auto Show, and must admit was taken by its all-electric off-road inspired B1 SUV and B2 pickup truck. The company was taking deposits at the time and promised deliveries by mid-way through the next year.
At the next L.A. Auto Show, it was back in the same spot with the same two vehicles, and I mean literally the same ones. Due to some production issues, an eager spokesperson told me, deliveries had been pushed back six months. I got the same story at the next year’s L.A. show. You get the idea.
I chalked it up to just one more bit of vapourware in the venture-capital-hungry world that is startup EV makes. But instead of driving into the sunset, the company found a sugar daddy in 2022 when Mullen Automotive acquired a 60 per cent controlling interest in Bollinger Motors for US$148.2 million.
Cue the speculation that the B1 and B2 would live to charge another day, but Mullen quietly cancelled both vehicles and pivoted to larger commercial and fleet EVs. So why on Earth were the B1 and B2 on display at CES at the Mullen booth? I didn’t have the stomach to ask.
Miss: Plastic freebies
Okay, CES is a consumer show, not a sustainability show. However, the tech community loves to wrap itself in the saving-the-planet flag at every opportunity it gets. So why on Earth did so many booths at this year’s show have useless plastic giveaways that will eventually find themselves bobbing in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Pictured here are some useless Frisbees stamped with the name of an AI company, but I can assure you there were many, many other offenders. Clean up your act, CES!
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