Our editorial team’s predictions for 2025 included a cooling of the electric vehicle (EV) market (check), new-car price cuts (check), and the rise of hybrids (check).
This time last year, we also tipped cheaper EVs (hello BYD Atto 1 for $23,990 plus on-roads – check) and said Toyota would confirm new sports cars (checkmate) … although we predicted it would lock in both a Celicaand an MR2 (close).
Looking back, we’re pretty chuffed.
The full self-driving (supervised) arrival in Australia was not predicted by our prediction, nor did we expect to be seduced by a luxury Chinese people-mover and ‘an electric supercar’ from Japan.
Here’s what raised eyebrows – for better or worse – for the childcareman.xyz crew in 2025.
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Sean Lander: Mazda CX-60 G25’s pointless petrol power
I had a diesel Mazda CX-60 for a few months as a long-term vehicle and hopped straight out of that into the G25.
Why Mazda put a naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine into such a large SUV is beyond me.
The fuel economy is poor, gutless engine and NVH are atrocious as compared to the six-cylinder diesel. The CX-60 is a great car, it just needs the right engine.
Marton Pettendy: Surprised at Kia’s surprise
The fact Kia appears surprised by slow Tasman sales is surprising in itself.
A Japanese company, which defended the Weird Harold-like front-end design of its first ute, described it deliberately different when in late 2024 Tasman revealed was met with a collective gasp from the public and the wider automotive industry. Afterward, it has said that it will not rush out an early facelift.
Kia has a long history of producing handsome models, dating back almost two decades to when it recruited Audi TT designer Peter Schreyer to lead its design team, and it knows design is the number-one automotive purchase consideration.
If you have heard Aussie ute buyers want tough and capable cars after all the customer design clinics, product planning meetings or local development focus and expensive pre-launch hype that are followed by Australian vehicles (not like a science experiment) it should also be known to know what they’re looking for.
If there is a Tasman’s facelift, which is otherwise’strongly designed and ticked by many boxes of interior design, packaging, functionality and quality as well as performance, refinement and technology.
William Stopford: Tesla’s Full Self-Driving and the Deepal E07
My two biggest surprises involve electric vehicles.
I was sceptical when Tesla said it would ditch radar and sensors in favour of its camera-only Tesla Vision setup. I was even more dubious of its so-called Full Self-Driving.
Tesla has a few serious doubts about me, but you can’t say the company has so many good engineers. I was driving Teslas with Full Self-Driving for over a week and came out very impressed.
Like Autopilot, it’s still technically a Level 2 driverless system after all so its name – even with the ‘Supervised’ suffix – seemed slightly over-egged.
The perfect way to do Full Self-Driving isn’t the one. It crossed an unbroken white line once, sometimes changed lanes too late and on one occasion tried to send me up an off-ramp even though the navigation was intended to force me to continue along the motorway.
However, they were just a few red crosses in one week of thousands of green ticks. The system handled everything from heavy traffic and roundabouts to tight streets, .
But as this technology becomes increasingly prevalent, people will become slavishly dependent on it and can’t drive without it – like a student who just gets ChatGPT to write all of his essays.
Until at least, if the tech keeps moving forward, then those of us who actually like driving won’t be stuck behind hopelessly slow-moving, or passing self drive cars.
Speaking of a different electric vehicle, I was delighted when Deepal confirmed earlier this year it would bring the Changan Nevo E07 to Australia.
The recent 18 months have seen a steady wave of new Chinese brands in Australia, and they all seem to offer some variation of ‘the mid-size SUV – often electric or ’body-on frame ute’. Yawn – .
So when I saw the E07 in China, I thought Deepal would be bold enough to bring this genre-busting EV to Australia. Well, they did and it’s pretty crazy.
It is a generic mid-2020s Chinese minimalist interior with driving dynamics that doesn’t feel like fun, but the configurability and ease of turning it from an quasi-ute into eloquent coupe-style SUV are impressive. Unlike traditional ute replacement, no, it’ll never replace one but there are probably plenty of buyers with a real use case for it.
Damion Smy: Toyota HiLux
The new Toyota HiLux is a better truck, but many expected a more significant update – rightly or wrongly.
Possibly we’re thinking of Ford as being ‘all-in’ on Ranger, given that it is the brand’s meal ticket while Toyota has a much larger portfolio.
Ben Zachariah: Foton is actually on
The Foton Tunland ute isn’t without its flaws, but for the money it’s a mighty impressive package.
The ride quality and interior design are excellent, the ride is good – especially in the V9 – it has plenty of space with real off-road capability. buyer, it would be a hard-pressed thing to do for the money with and buyers.
James Wong: Legal latency
Despite the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) coming into effect and increasing pressure from new competition out of China, it feels like a number of legacy brands are asleep at the wheel.
The Euro V-certified drivetrains are still being used to launch new cars, which have not been equipped with fuel- and emissions-saving technologies that exist in other parts of the world – it’s quite something to watch.
The fact that a number of new and updated models from legacy brands have been brought to market barely meeting this year’s NVES emissions caps is more confusing than the question asked by , even stricter limits will be in effect next year.
Hopefully more radical will be in 2026, although these regulatory regulations have been a long time coming but for many of the automotive world’s largest brands it is disappointing some of those names that aren’t doing more to reduce fuel use and emissions this year.
Alborz Fallah: Ferrari 296 Speciale
This was a second down the electrification and away from the purity of modern supercars, I thought this would be another bad slide to me.’ Then it surprised me that there was no pure super car in my opinion.
Which car is absolutely wonderful, the most efficient use of hybrid technology and still keeping all the emotions that make a Ferrari what it should be?
Josh Nevett: Zeekr’s Zeppelin
I never thought I’d be raving about an electric people mover come Christmas time, but here we are.
Quite simply, every VIP chauffeur should drive a Zeekr 009. The silence of electric power enables weary clients to settle in for a snooze, made even easier by the fitment of plush captain’s chairs in the second row. That quiet ambience also makes for stress-free driving.
Passenger A large entertainment screen with 30-speaker Yamaha sound system is located in the passenger area, and a fridge. Other than that, all bases are covered in all of the bases. But even though the 009 is big and intended for its use, it’s a serious punch.
It is a dual-motor version of the car, with 450kW and 693Nm power down unexpectedly well. that inspired some hilarious on-ramp drag races – all of which I won.
Meanwhile, the 009 will happily drive itself with a suite of sophisticated driver assistance systems — once again perfect for professional drivers who regularly spend long stints behind the wheel.
There’s no denying Zeekr’s local flagship commands serious money, but it largely justifies the hefty price tag through unbridled excess. It also compares favourably with more conventional alternatives such as the Lexus LM and Mercedes-Benz V-Class.
China setting the benchmark for outright luxury – who would’ve thought?
Max Davies: Lexus LFA Concept
I was close to listing this car among my biggest disappointments of 2024, and it still isn’t entirely clear-cut.
For a start, it’s impossible to ignore Lexus has now applied the LFA name to an electric concept. The original 2010 LFA is synonymous with a phenomenal-sounding V10 engine, so knowing its likely replacement won’t have an engine at all is a little deflating.
All else about it appealed to me as a . But it’s one of, if not the best-looking, concept cars that were announced in 2025 and no mention about an electric powertrain distracts from its truly beautiful design.
But it looks production-ready except for some of the ill-fitting side mirrors and a sci-fi interior, which clearly shows intent on Lexus’s part to revive at least half as much magic as does in the V10 LFA halo car of yesteryear.
That’s the other thing to look at, that’d be . A lack of a demonstration of Toyota’s engineering power was nothing in the original LFA, not an example of what the Japanese brand’d engineers could achieve when they were given that desire and resources needed.
What does it mean when those engineers can’t do the same thing with an electric car instead? If it enters production, then isn’T too much to expect something very special.
Besides, Toyota is already putting a twin-turbo hybrid V8 into a halo sports car, which is probably a smart move given the poor value retention of high-end electric cars.
Thanks for reading The biggest shocks and surprises for the CarExpert team in 2025
