All of the electric, connected, self-driving cars at CES 2017

The splashiest auto news coming out of CES and the North American International Auto Show has been about new models, self-driving tech, and wild concepts. But in a quieter series of moves, automakers also continued to strengthen their control over what it is we’re able to do inside our cars, particularly when it comes to the apps that run on infotainment systems.

Though carmakers have generally embraced Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto, many are hoping to establish an alternative app system that will be almost entirely under their purview. Automakers bill it as a move to create a seamless experience for their customers, but others in the industry see it as a way to cut Apple and Google out of the equation, so that vehicle manufacturers can continue to sell new services to customers.

Just days after teasing a Nissan and Cortana partnership, the car maker is unveiling its plans to integrate Microsoft’s digital assistant into some vehicles. Nissan is working directly with Microsoft on its Connected Vehicle Platform, which utilizes Azure, Cortana, and Office 365. Cortana will be available in cars and will adapt its preferences and features based on drivers and others in the vehicle.

Nissan demonstrated Cortana integration in a concept video of what will be possible with the digital assistant. Asking “what is my schedule” surfaces the usual functionality of Cortana’s calendar integration, but Nissan also demonstrated the ability for Cortana to understand and suggest shortcuts to destinations, and even options to download new maps overnight. At one point in the demo, Cortana even asks “shall I engage auto park?”

Nissan has taken NASA technology built for the Mars Rover to help control fleets of autonomous vehicles. It’s called Seamless Autonomous Mobility (SAM), and Nissan believes it’s a solution for when vehicles don’t know how to handle the unexpected.

Though even basic self-driving car systems can handle the vast majority of situations — heading down a well-lit highway in nice weather — the biggest obstacle to fully autonomous driving is how to handle unusual or unpredictable or just plain weird situations.

Nissan announced today that it is planning to release a new Leaf electric car in the “near future.” The new model will be the successor to the most popular electric car in the world and will include support for Nissan’s ProPilot autonomous driving technology. ProPilot, which was first revealed last summer in the Serena minivan for Japan, allows for single lane autonomous driving on the highway.

Nissan did not say exactly when the new Leaf will be available, nor how much it will cost. It is likely that it will launch first in Nissan’s home market of Japan.

Car companies love to say they got there first. It appears Honda may be the first major automaker to show a concept vehicle designed for the ride-sharing market. The NeuV, which was announced Thursday at CES, is an acronym for the New Electric Urban Vehicle. NeuV [noo-vee] is based on the premise that self-driving, electric cars can be put to work rather than sitting idle nearly all the time.

Honda says the two-seat vehicle could be programmed to pick up and drop off passengers when its owner isn’t using it, or to sell back remaining energy to the grid. “We designed NeuV to become more valuable to the owner by optimizing and monetizing the vehicle’s down time,” Mike Tsay, principal designer, Honda R&D Americas, said in a company statement.

Nvidia might be most famous as a manufacturer of computer graphics cards, but the company has been increasingly turning its attention to the automotive market over the past few years. This CES, it detailed new moves that will move it even further into the market: partnerships with suppliers ZF and Bosch that will see it making parts for automatic cars, and an expanded deal with Audi that will see the companies bring a proper self-driving vehicle to market by 2020.

Audi and Nvidia have worked together before, but the new partnership, announced by Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang on stage at CES 2017, will see the companies working to produce a “Level 4” automatic vehicle — that means a car capable of driving entirely on its own. As an early proof of concept, the two companies have already collaborated on a experimental self-driving Q7 SUV. Nvidia says the car — which is on display at CES — learned to drive itself in just four days, using its AI technology.

Nvidia thinks it can use autonomous driving sensors to make manual driving safer, and that’s very clever. It’s called AI Co-Pilot and Nvidia unveiled it at CES as part of an extensive set of upgrades it made to its autonomous vehicle products.

Self-driving cars will, eventually, save many lives. But, it could be decades before autonomous cars can drive in every situation. Until then, there will be times when we must drive ourselves, because there are lots of situations where autonomous cars still aren’t good enough. Anything from bad weather and construction zones can flummox them.

This is BB8. It’s Nvidia’s autonomous car and it’s been driving around in California and New Jersey testing things out. It’s always nice when companies give their cars cutesy names (this one is, of course, borrowed from The Force Awakens) but between the upbeat music and the eager way the car explores the world with brightly colored boxes identifying other cars, traffic lights, and road signs, you can’t help but smile. Sure, we’ve seen similar videos before, but the fact that cars are freaking driving themselves is still mind blowing.

Nvidia is all-in on autonomous cars. Its supercomputer for self-driving cars is being used by everyone from Volvo to Roborace, and the company just inked deals with huge suppliers ZF and Bosch, and German automotive giant Audi, to help build more autonomous vehicles. For many situations, it’s clear that the autonomous technology is (nearly) ready — the tech is progressing so fast that it seems like we’re just waiting for government regulators to figure out how to make it all legal.

A year ago, Ford teased a possible integration with the Amazon Echo smart home device, so car owners could turn on their home lights or browse their music libraries from the comfort of their Fusions or F-150s. Or they can switch it up and ask Alexa to start their car from inside their homes. Now the integration between Ford and Amazon is official and will be rolling out in the weeks to come, the companies announced at CES today.

Ford claims it will be the first automaker to offer real-world integration with Amazon’s popular smart home device. Other car companies have also working to get Alexa in their vehicles, but it looks like Ford may have won the sprint to get there first.

BMW today unveiled what it called a “glimpse into the mid-future” for the interior of its cars. It’s called the BMW i Inside Future sculpture, and it’s what BMW thinks you might be sitting in after 2020. It’s got comfy seats, a futuristic control system called HoloActive Touch, and the ability for each passenger to watch their own videos or listen to music without bothering everyone else in the car.

These concept designs are important because the way we ride in cars will be changing over the next decade. Instead of driving everywhere, new cars will be able to drive us around while we read a book, take a nap, or (for many of us, sadly) get some work done. BMW calls it a “living space for comfort-focused, permanently connected users.”

Hyundai unveiled a whole bunch of futuristic things at CES this year: a low-cost driverless car, a bunch of robot exoskeletons, and an electric scooter. But the most out-there thing the South Korean automaker had to show wasn’t even physically present because it doesn’t exist yet. Nor will it ever, but wow, this is a wild one.

Hyundai’s “Mobility Vision” concept is a mash-up of a smart home with an autonomous vehicle, with futuristic furniture moving seamlessly between both. The idea is your autonomous vehicle is docked to your home via some sort of portal, becoming a cool extension that just detaches when you’re ready to be whisked across town for an errand or road trip. The motivation, Hyundai says, is to “blur the line between mobility and living and working space, integrating the car into the daily lives of users.”

This year, CES is lousy with self-driving cars. So why should we care about Hyundai’s Ioniq, a sporty-looking hatchback with an electric motor and an array of autonomous sensors? For one, the Korean automaker claims that because it’s using cheaper sensors and less computing power, the Ioniq will be the one true affordable driverless car. Think of it as the autonomous vehicle for you and me.

To retain the car’s sleek design, Hyundai’s engineers hid the laser-powered LIDAR sensors behind the bumper. This is a similar look to Delphi’s autonomous Audi SUVs, and certainly sets the Ioniq apart from other self-driving cars with their rooftop cameras and multitude of protruding sensors.

2017 is about to become overwhelmed with self-driving cars. Today, BMW, Intel, and Mobileye announced their intention to deploy 40 autonomous vehicles for testing on public roads in the second half of 2017. The cars — BMW 7 series equipped with Intel and Mobileye technology — will be on the roads in both the US and Europe for public trials, the companies say.

Six months ago, BMW first announced its intention to partner with Intel, which will supply processing power, and Mobileye, the Israeli supplier of driver-assistance systems and sensors that supplies a large percentage of the auto industry. At that time, the German automaker said it hoped to have autonomous vehicles available for purchase by 2021. Today’s announcement is that those vehicles will begin testing later this year.

Faraday Future’s first car is the FF91, and the troubled company unveiled it tonight at CES in Las Vegas. The launch was full of buzzwords, but the main push from Faraday was how fast the car is. With 1,050 horsepower, the car can go (according to Faraday Future, at least) from 0–60 in 2.39 seconds. That’s faster than any other car built today.

We’ll see if Faraday can actually deliver on the litany of promises it laid out today, but if it can bring the beautiful FF91 to market, Tesla might have something to worry about.

Nissan appears to be preparing to announce Microsoft’s Cortana integration for its cars. The motor company tweeted a short video with Cortana checking a schedule and teasing some “exciting announcements” for Nissan’s CES keynote on Thursday. It’s not clear exactly what Nissan will announce, but the company is holding its keynote at 4PM on January 5th, streaming live on Twitter or YouTube.

Microsoft has been experimenting with Cortana in cars for at least a year. The software maker first unveiled a Windows in the car concept back in 2014, and the same prototype software progressed to include Cortana last year. Microsoft has been working to integrate Cortana into the windshield of a car, allowing drivers to make restaurant reservations or see their favorite locations on a virtual map. Nissan has previously used a special version of Windows in its cars to create its own interface and system. If the pair are working on Windows in vehicles, then we could be set to see exactly how Microsoft envisions Cortana inside cars later this week.

Ford will release hybrid versions of its F-150 pickup — America’s best-selling vehicle, moving more than 750,000 units last year — and the legendary Mustang sports car, by 2020. It’s part of a large investment in electrified vehicles that Ford CEO Mark Fields unveiled at its Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Michigan today.

Details on the new hybrids are pretty thin, but Ford did say that the F-150 Hybrid would be able to work as a mobile generator — generating electrical power at a job site is a big deal for farmers and contractor-types — and would offer “powerful towing and payload capacity.”

Today, Ford announced an unexpected addition to its lineup, an all-new, fully electric SUV scheduled for in 2020. Built in Ford’s Flat Rock, Michigan plant, the as-yet-unnamed vehicle would be engineered to have a range of at least 300 miles, and be sold in the US, Europe, and Asia. The company also announced hybrid versions of the Mustang and F-150 pickup.

“As more and more consumers around the world become interested in electrified vehicles, Ford is committed to being a leader [in the category],” Ford CEO Mark Fields said in a statement. The strategy reflects renewed competition with General Motors, which released the Chevy Bolt earlier this year.