Qualcomm Shows Off Its C-V2X Automotive Solutions & SoCs At CES 2019

You may not think of a car as being an “electronic”, but at the past few CESes, the automotive industry has been well represented. Even companies like Qualcomm have made a big impression on the market, and at this CES the company announced its third-generation Snapdragon Automotive Cockpit SoC – or rather, three SoCs, catering to three tiers, ranging from entry to high-end. AI, safety, better navigation, and rich visual experiences are all part of this alluring package.

At last month’s Snapdragon Tech Summit in Maui, Hawaii, Qualcomm talked lots about 5G wireless technologies, and focused quite significantly on ways the technologies would improve our lives in the future, even enhancing education in parts of the world where wired infrastructure is difficult to deploy and maintain. At 2019’s CES, Qualcomm continued its 5G push by talking about how it will integrate with our autonomous cars.

C-V2X (cellular vehicle-to-everything) is a successor to V2X, which represents vehicle-to-network and device-to-device (eg: vehicle-to-vehicle) communications – a standard that will encompass all of the important communication your vehicle will need to engage in, either to the network or to other vehicles. Clearly, if every autonomous vehicle on the road knows what the other ones are doing, that’s going to result in a safer (and hopefully more efficient) environment overall.

At the show, Qualcomm announced that Las Vegas would be supporting C-V2X, which is happening in partnership with Commsignia, producer of roadside C-V2X units (RSUs). These units will be laid out along certain roadways around Vegas in a trial to highlight the benefits of the IEEE standard. A few partners Qualcomm had on hand to prove C-V2X’s merits through demos include Audi, Ducati, and Ford.

During Qualcomm’s keynote, examples were shown of what was possible in future cars, and the potential is pretty amazing. If you think your phone is integrated heavily with your everyday life, your vehicle will become an extension of that in the future. You’ll be able to ping Alexa from in your comfy mobile seat to ask for directions, while your passengers enjoy content on their own dedicated screens.

It’s not entirely clear when C-V2X is going to exit testing and become a reality for the rest of us, but rapid progress has been made in the ecosystem, and with a very capable 5G technology right around the corner in grander scale, the future of our automotive tech is looking downright amazing.