By 2030, a typical car will need ten times more chips than it does today. That will increase the industry’s dependence on the semiconductor supply chain. But an even greater challenge is the development of chip technologies that deliver on the automotive industry’s promises: complete electrification (with a decent range), increased safety systems (up to autonomous vehicles), and a superb in-cabin experience (including health monitoring). It’s no exaggeration that this will require a quantum leap forward for semiconductor technologies. Cars will need affordable on-chip sensors for infrared imaging, extremely sensitive radar, and even lidar. To make sense of all this data, sensor fusion systems need custom-built logic chips. And most importantly, all these technologies must be tremendously more energy-efficient than today’s state of the art. If not, tomorrow’s ‘computers on wheels’ will spend so much battery power on sensing and computation that they won’t even make it out of the driveway before they run out of power. In this talk, we present how imec addresses these challenges through a full-stack innovation approach that includes CMOS-based SWIR imagers, solid-state lidar components, low-cost imaging radar, and innovative sensor fusion algorithms and neuromorphic hardware. And – because co-development of hardware and software is essential for optimal results – we argue for the complete automotive ecosystem to join forces, and shape the semiconductor roadmap together.