Nvidia is betting that smarter software will drive the next phase of electric vehicle (EV) adoption, unveiling what its boss dubbed as the ‘ChatGPT moment’ for self-driving cars as UK EV sales hit record highs.
Speaking at the yearly Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, tech titan and Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang revealed Alpamayo, his new AI system designed to help autonomous vehicles reason.
The move would allows the car to navigate complex, real-world scenarios, rather than reacting to patterns in past data, he claimed.
“The ChatGPT moment for physical AI is here,” Huang said. “Robotaxis are among the first to benefit.”
This comes as the UK automotive market rebounds, with new registrations topping 2m in 2025, for the first time since the pandemic.
EVs now account for one in four car sales, a record share, but still below the government’s 28 per cent Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) target for the year.
Sales rise, but pressure builds
Despite the growth in the last 12 months, the gap between regulation and demand is only widening.
Industry figures have long warned that manufacturers are subsequently leaning heavily on discounts to keep pace with mandated targets, with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) estimating average EV discounts of around £11,000 per car in 2025.
Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, described the current pace of adoption as “unsustainable”, as the ZEV target rises to 33 per cent in 2026, raising pressure to already thinned margins.
Melanie Lane, chief executive of EV charging firm Pod, said the sector had continued to deliver “record figures”, despite repeated challenges, chief among which is the UK’s sustained policy instability.
“With drivers and industry both playing their part, it’s crucial that government resists any urge to revisit the ZEV mandate,” she said.
Nvidia bets on brains
Nvidia’s answer is intelligence, as he claims his new AI model, Alpamayo, has been designed to bring chain-of-thought reasoning to autonomous vehicles. This allows them to explain decisions and handle rare events like roadworks or erratic driver behaviour.
“It drives so naturally because it learned directly from human demonstrators,” Huang said, showcasing a video of a Mercedes navigating San Francisco traffic with no human oversight.
The model is due to launch in the US this year, with Europe set to follow, and will run on Nvidia’s new ‘vera rubin’ chips, also unveiled at CES.
Huang argues the platform, arriving later this year, can deliver up to five times the compute power of it predecessor while using significantly less energy, a key claim as global grids creak under soaring power pressures.
“This is how we’re going to get everybody to the next frontier”, Huang said.