that tech straight into service?

Aptiv's fleet of BMW 540s, studded and jeweled with sensors but more immediately noticeable for their safety orange wheels, spent CES ferrying people from the convention center to any of around 20 hotels. Pulling into and out of parking lots was a job for Patrick, who was the safety monitor on my ride with Tapley. Private property concerns meant only humans were allowed to drive the final few hundred feet.

Aptiv

Jonathan Gitlin



Jonathan Gitlin

Once on the public roads, Patrick had a boring old time, poised to take the wheel but denied a reason. From the front passenger seat, Tapley talked us through the 30-minute ride to Caesar's Palace and back. (By Tuesday, this route must have taken twice as long.) The BMW's infotainment screen displayed astripped-down graphical representation of the environment around us as sensed and then perceived by the car.

With her attention toward us in the back—I was sharing this ride with another correspondent—Tapley missed the sole moment of excitement. As we traveled up the Strip, a bus one lane over had stopped to disgorge itself of passengers. The driver had chosen to stop at a jaunty angle rather than neatly parallel to the curb on one side and the flow of traffic on the other. So although the back left corner of the bus was still actually in its lane, had I (or you) been driving we'd probably have slowed a little and moved over to give it added room.

The BMW—with its Intel silicon brain, nine lidars, 10 radars, two GPS