Some automakers’ design choices are never mimicked, while others become so trendy every other brand rushes to follow suit. Be it massive touchscreens, capacitive ‘switchgear’ or designs that came straight out of I, Robot, there’s always something ‘new’ that feels like we’ve seen it before. Here are some of the automotive trends the CarExpert team would like to leave in 2025. Alborz Fallah: Stop putting the Tesla-like car display in the instrument cluster I want to see car companies stop putting the Tesla-esque assistance display in the instrument cluster. I don’t need to have a computer tell me what cars…

Production of the current-generation Volkswagen T-Roc R has wrapped up, but that’s not to say it’s forbidden fruit until the next-generation small SUV rocks up. So far, the T-Roc has existed for only one generation, and it has been with us in Australia since 2020 despite entering production in 2017. The high-performance T-Roc R flagship, meanwhile, was rolled out overseas in 2019, followed by its Australian debut as part of a 2022 model year range. Effectively a jacked-up Golf, the T-Roc has quickly become one of Volkswagen Australia’s most popular models. So far in 2025, it’s been outsold by only…

Perhaps your New Year’s resolution was to finally get a new car. Well, allow us to steer you in the right direction. As more and more auto brands flood the Australian market, some cars are increasingly finding themselves trying to keep above water. Not every car can sell as well as a Toyota Prado or HiLux, but some of these vehicles are selling well below what we’d expect. That means you can buy something you won’t see on every street corner, and potentially score a good deal in the process. For this exercise, we looked at models that had market…

And so, Alpine crosses a boundary. Until now, the revived French sports car maker – long since part of the Renault Group – has been playing on a familiar pitch, making the delectable A110 mid-engined sports car and a heated-up version of Renault’s 5 E-Tech electric hatchback called the A290.  Both of these cars are well inside Alpine’s traditional wheelhouse. The brand got its start making sportier, modified versions of Renault’s 4CV, the French automaker’s rival for the Volkswagen Beetle. Later it produced the hopelessly pretty original A110, which became a rallying superstar, and then spent the 1970s, 1980s and…

The 2027 Ram 1500 SRT TRX has been announced in the United States (US) as the most powerful ‘half-ton’ pickup on the planet and could herald the return of V8 power to Australian Ram showrooms. The Ram 1500 SRT TRX is powered by a 6.2-litre supercharged V8 petrol engine making 777 horsepower (579kW) and 922Nm – up 56kW and 40Nm over the last version sold in Australia, the 2024 Ram 1500 TRX Final Edition. It knocks off the 5.2-litre supercharged V8 Ford F-150 Raptor R’s 720hp (530kW) as the most powerful production pickup on the planet, and tops the Ford’s…

BYD is China’s best-selling automaker for the fourth year in a row, ahead of Geely, Chery and Great Wall Motors, despite falling short of its sales target by almost one million vehicles. In a global shift, China is set to become the world’s number one car maker in 2025, overtaking Japan for the first time, and preliminary sales show BYD is at the top of the list of Chinese brands. Despite this, BYD’s 4,602,436 sales in 2025 – as compiled by CarNewsChina – fell 897,564 vehicles, or 16.32 per cent, short of the publicised target of 5.5 million. While the…

Jeep tiptoed into uncharted territory just over a year ago when it launched the pint-size Avenger – Australia’s first battery-electric light SUV – but it hasn’t quite been able to lay claim to the land. The Avenger was Jeep’s first-ever fully electric vehicle (EV) and narrowly beat the Hyundai Inster on sale here (but not the Mini Aceman, which is officially classed as a light car anyway), and it’s fair to say it looks more like an SUV than a hatchback than both of those tiny EVs. But with modest dimensions similar to those of the garden-variety Mazda CX-3, it’s…