The smart car was always going to be a major focus at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), though the most-hyped announcement, of a self-driving car partnership between Google and Ford, failed to materialize. The rumored alliance would have been a major boost for Google which, like other wireless giants, is trying to negotiate the right balance of power between Silicon Valley and Detroit in the connected and driverless car platforms. Fields emphasized the difficult fact that the IT companies do not an inalienable right to run the smart car sector, describing Ford as “an auto and mobility company” in equal measure, and announcing that the firm’s test fleet of fully autonomous vehicles now numbered 30. But there was no…