The Consumer Electronics Show is an annual convention held in Las Vegas that provides companies with a platform to announce products. Tech journalists flock to the convention every year and geek out about the products announced for the coming year. While some product concepts never leave the show floor, the amount of innovative technology announced every year is staggering. Every year’s CES has themes and as this year’s four day convention comes to a close, we have seen numerous companies announcing mobility produces. New car companies have been founded, and CES veterans have returned this year to announce exciting working concepts for the future.

 Past years of CES have been met with the usual flashy new autonomous car startup announcing a car we all know will flop after the convention ends. A perfect example is Faraday Future, the companies that brought their autonomous car concept to CES last year and missed their promised deadlines for production. Electric powered autonomous driving is surely the future of transport, and car market giants are beginning to realize their businesses are withering away.

 Toyota made a big splash at the Tokyo Motor Show a few weeks before the start of CES. The company has kept their heads down and blocked out the reality of electric cars taking over until this years Tokyo Motor Show where they showcased many fully electric vehicles to start production in coming years. At CES however the Toyota E-Palette was announced, toyota’s first autonomous vehicle set to begin real world testing in 2020.  

 The E-Palette isn’t the autonomous driving car you have in mind, in fact it isn’t a car at all. The prototype on stage at CES was a self driving open source capsule. The vehicle will work under many titles and fulfill many jobs as an autonomously driven space. Multiple use cases were shown during Toyota’s flashy presentation where they announced partnership with Amazon, Uber, Mazda, and Pizza Hut. The simplest use for this vehicle and the one we are most likely to experience first is on demand pizza delivery. The opportunities are endless in Toyota’s eyes. They presented every idea that could work from ride sharing through the partnership with Uber to mobile buying and selling with Amazon. The concept is like no other we have seen in prior years and it poses a promising future if Toyota fulfils their promise of 2020 testing and production in coming years.