Looking ahead to the cars of 2025 | Thank Frankel it’s Friday

Here, the government has to look again at the well-intended but misguided Zero Emissions Mandate. Introduced by the previous administration, it’s  a way of trying to force manufacturers to sell more electric cars by imposing minimum percentage sales upon them that increase year on year with enormous fines for those unable to comply.

As I alluded to last week, what appears to have been missed is that to force a manufacturer to sell EVs also requires customers to buy them at a time when they’re proving none too willing to do so. So manufacturers have approached this by either getting rid of their EV quotas to company sales and government-backed schemes at massive discounts, or simply reducing the number of cars it sells overall. Thereby reducing the number of EVs it has to sell on the basis that it has to be better than paying the fine or ‘buying’ credits from rival manufacturers like Tesla with surplus EVs above quota to spare. 

And once all those discounted EVs find their way onto the second hand market, it is not their manufacturers who determine their price any more, but the customer. The result? Depreciation curves that look like the trajectory of a rock falling from a cliff, resulting in an even greater disincentive for the private punter to buy a new EV than range anxiety. The law of unintended consequences writ large.

Governments must learn they cannot force this process and accept that until they do their bit and install comprehensive ultra-rapid charging infrastructures dispensing reliable and affordable electricity, the customer will continue to vote with his or her feet, as is their right. And personally I’m not holding my breath for this to happen in 2025 or indeed any time soon.

So the year to come will continue to be a slog for the car industry, though for the customer starting to come around to the idea of an EV there are astonishing bargains to be had for those prepared to look.

But so too will there be many really interesting new cars on the way, many of them EVs. I will, for example, be really interested to see if Renault is able to build on what currently looks like the incredibly strong and successful foundations laid down by the brilliant Renault 5. This year it will put on sale not only its fun looking Renault 4 crossover SUV sister, but also the Alpine A290, only the second new Alpine model since the A110’s debut seven years ago. Basically a sexed-up R5, I’ve driven it and while it’s predictably nothing like as captivating as its flyweight mid-engine forbear, it’s still by a distance the most enjoyable electric hatch on sale.

But the brand I’ll be following even more closely is BMW which in 2025 launches the first of its ‘Neue Klasse’ models. It is fair to say that not all of BMW’s most recent styling decisions have met with universal acclaim, and this is a total reset, a brand new design direction, spearheaded by a new iX3 in 2025, but followed by the crucial all new 3-series in 2026. Apparently it will look just like the already seen concept car, which for those who can remember when BMWs were truly beautiful can only be a good thing.

It’s the year that Land Rover will be trying to stretch its Defender sub-brand with the launch of the new flagship Octa model, and the year Porsche will not only show us the latest GT3 generation of 911 but also the new 911 Turbo, rumoured to be an absolute monster of a car with over 700bhp. We will see more of the McLaren W1 and Ferrari F80 hypercars but are unlikely to drive them, though the third member of the new ‘holy trinity’ the Aston Martin Valhalla will certainly be reviewed before the year is out.

But the single most anticipated event of 2025? You’d never have guessed it six months ago but it is surely to be the unveiling of the production version of the Jaguar Type 00. You may recall, you may even wish to forget, a short teaser video released before its unveiling and the level of publicity it earned Jaguar, some of it good, most of it not. But if it’s true that there really is no such thing as bad publicity, putting Jaguar back in the headlines in a way we’ve not seen since the launch of the E-type will be regarded as no bad thing, especially as the concept car was far more warmly received when finally revealed.

Even so, that’s the easy bit. Designing a production electric Jaguar that’s good enough on paper and in the flesh to tempt people to abandon the Aston or Bentley they might otherwise have considered buying at a time when EVs are struggling is a task of an entirely different order. And I wish them all the luck in the world with it.