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02-09-2026

Good Morning Autoline,

I understand why the auto companies are backing off on spending on EV development. But I don’t understand why they would put that money into the development of ICE Vehicles.
ICE vehicles today are pretty much at the peak of combustion engine efficiency – 33 to 35% efficient; how much more efficient can they get. What would be the payback of spending $2B on a new V8 engine design, or $2B on new turbo four or V6?
The same question would be applied to ICE vehicle transmissions. What benefit would there be in spending billions of dollars developing a new automatic transmission when you currently have 8, 9, and ten speed automatics that are very efficient. What would be the advantage of spending money on new transmissions since the efficiency gained would be so little.
If battery costs drop by just another 50%, which would not be unusual at this time, EV’s will likely make up as much as half of all sales by 2029 or 2030. Any EV cost cuts and range improvements after that point will only expedite the demise of the ICE vehicles, most likely leaving ICE vehicles selling at a minor percentage of the total market by 2034 or 2035. Any manufacturer still selling ICE vehicles at that time will have to pile on the incentives just to move the metal.
Hybrids make sense, but only for a short time until the cost of batteries gets down to $40 Kwh and energy density of 300 to 400 Wh/kg. At that point pure EV’s will be cheaper and outshine even the best of the new generation of hybrids.
It’s inevitable that the auto industry will be fully EV by 2035, so where would the payback be in developing new ICE vehicles and transmissions at this time. It would make more sense to ride out the rest of the ICE lifespan with the existing engines and transmissions that exist today, just tweaking them along the road to demise.
What are your thoughts?

Mark A

Mark,

The Detroit Three are going to make minimal investments in their ICE products. After writing off tens of billions of dollars on cancelled EV programs, they need to maximize the profits they make on ICE vehicles and that means spending as little money on them as possible–just enough to keep them fresh in the eyes of the public. Look at all the “new” models they’re introducing these days. Almost all of them are just different trim lines of existing vehicles.

In the next two years, both GM and Ford will introduce batteries using LMR chemistry. Lithium manganese rich. GM says it will cut the cost of the batteries in its full size pickups by $10,000. That would imply a $4,000 cost reduction for something like the Chevy Equinox EV.

The one area where it makes sense to invest in internal combustion engines is with EREVS. Since they only have to run a generator, they don’t have to go through the full duty cycle of a regular ICE engine. They can run in a limited rev range and tolerate much higher levels of EGR even with higher compression ratios. In China EREV engines are hitting 46-48% thermodynamic efficiency.

I don’t think you’ll see the domestic automakers investing big sums of money in new transmissions.

All the best,
John McElroy

02-09-2026

Loved last week’s AAH guest – thank you for that. My question for Autoline, should you choose to discuss it in passing on one of the shows, is…

Are USA automakers getting head faked? Are they pivoting to ICE and hybrid just in time to field those vehicles as irresistible next generation BEVs appear in US markets? Meaning automakers will have lots full of suddenly undesirable and overly expensive hybrids, while foreign (and some domestic) competition suddenly starts dropping Gen 4 BEVs – cheaper, faster, less maintenance, easily charged, working in all climates, etc”,

I worry that US automakers are gonna get burned a third time. First, chasing BEVs too early. Second, overdoing the pivot to hybrids and ICE. And third, not having desirable BEV products when the market pivots. 2030 will tell, and that’s less than one product cycle away.

Thanks for reading,

Scooter from Asheville

Scooter,

GM and Ford are still heavily involved in developing EVs for the US and global markets. Ford’s Universal EV platform is a radical change in how to make cars and could be revolutionary for the entire industry. For example, Doug Field, who runs the program, says the electric motor will be the same cost or cheaper than anything you can buy in China. GM is still committed to EVs and is working on a family of low-cost electrics using LMR battery chemistry that could cut the cost of the battery by thousands of dollars. Ford’s new EVs will start production next year, GM’s the year after that. We haven’t heard if Stellantis is abandoning its EV plans for the US, but then again, it has a lot of other problems to deal with right now as Antonio Filosa tries to turn the company around.

John McElroy

02-09-2026

Happy New Year John and Sean!

I saw your recent sales report on luxury brands and thought it could be missing a few brands. I imagine that you may have only had room for the top ten brands, except there were even a few missing from that list.

I don’t really consider Tesla a luxury brand, especially since their average selling price is probably well below many or most on this list with such a huge portion of their sales coming from the cheaper 3 and Y models.

But, I do think Land Rover, Porsche and even Rivian deserve to be on a list of luxury brands. The remaining brands’ sales are negligible. The bolded brands are the ones that were not on your list.

Anyway, here is the complete list of what I consider to be the US volume luxury brands.

Full disclosure: I am a bit of an auto sales nerd and compile lists like this from time to time to share with my friends in the auto business.

GM Veteran

1. Tesla* 544,500 *Many people, myself included, do not consider Tesla a luxury brand. But many do, so I included it on this list for context.
2. BMW 388,897
3. Lexus 370,260
4. M-B 343,200
5. Cadillac 173,515
6. Audi 164,942
7. Acura 133,433
8. Volvo 121,607
9. Lincoln 106,868
10. Land Rover 106,708
11. Genesis 82,331
12. Porsche 76,219
13. Infiniti 52,846
14. Rivian 42,490
15. Lucid 10,100
16. Jaguar 7,719
17. Polestar 7,325
18. Alfa Romeo 5,652

Total 2025 US Luxury Vehicle Sales: 2,738,612* Source: Automotive News

*Does not include ultra luxury brands like Ferrari, Bentley and Rolls Royce, all of which sold less than Alfa Romeo.

GM Veteran

Excellent feedback. BTW, we did not include Tesla because with it dropping the S and X we think it can no longer be considered a luxury brand.

But we should have included Land Rover and Porsche and maybe Rivian, but the list was getting pretty long to cram into a chart that would be legible in a video.

Best,
John McElroy

12-01-2025

Hi Autoline
I have recently seen this heavily disguised MPV looking vehicle on the streets of London. I am wondering if you will be able to help me identify what it could be. These pictures were taken near a Lexus/Toyota dealership so I am wondering if this could be a future Lexus MPV?
Thanks
Teddy


Teddy,

Thanks for sending these photos, we love getting feedback like this from our viewers.

Based on the design, this is probably not a Lexus. It’s very flat sided and has rear sliding doors. It’s more likely a new Chinese EV. But if you find out anything else, let us know!

Best,
John McElroy

11-14-2025

Dear Autoline team,

Can you please ask your industry data friends for the median price of new and used vehicles in the US. Median price is more relevant to buyers, everybody.

Here’s wishing you luck in finding median price data.

While Tesla now has vehicles selling for $10k below average price, the vehicle might be selling for the median price.

Regards
Peter E

Peter,

Great point about the median price. I’m afraid though that we’ll have to do some digging to come up with it. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that published.

Best,
John McElroy

11-14-2025

Dear Autoline,

I’m a long-time watcher, but this is the first time I’ve reached out. I noticed something on a drive last night. I was on I-96 in Livonia driving towards downtown Detroit at 10 pm when I saw a Chevy Bolt with no markings but a manufacturer license plate. There were big screens in the back of the vehicle and at least 4 Lidars (looked like Velodyne ones) on top of the car. Frankly it looked like an old Cruise vehicle.

I only managed to take one photo at 10:14 pm (according to the timestamp).

Have a great day!

Bill H

PS: If you ever use this photo, please point out that I very rarely take photos while driving.

11-14-2025

Sean,

This issue occurred to me a few years ago. Being an engineer living in a fully metricated country, I proposed vehicles be limited to 5 m/s.s acceleration on public roads. Any faster would need to happen on a proper race track.

Interesting that the Chinese have settled on 5.55555 m/s.s ave accel.

Perhaps 5.0 m/s.s is their real limit and it drew on 100 kmh in 5 seconds.

Regards
Peter Egan

10-03-2025

Hello,
I just read about this article and got curious about LiDAR being able to estimate the weight of bears from size and density.
Could it be likewise for all the pedestrians on the streets?
A database may exist for characteristics of population.
I tried looking for such a database without result.

Do you know by any chance of any auto manufacturer with such a database or LiDAR companies such as Luminar or AEVA?
Thank you and have a great day.
A daily viewer,
Mitch

Mitch,

That’s a very curious question that no one has ever asked us before. And we haven’t heard of any company that has that kind of data base. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but we’ve never heard of it.

All the best,
John McElroy

10-01-2025

Long time listener. First time writer.

When introducing new EVs, John and Sean always quote a mileage between recharging, but we never hear about mileage between refueling for ICE autos.

Given that most people are close to charging stations (their home), but not so close to gas stations, can we add the ICE range too?

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for your question, we love hearing from our viewers!

We’ve never quoted ICE driving range because most people never ask about it, while they’re very concerned about the range they can get with an EV. Maybe we’ll consider quoting that ICE number when it’s available, which isn’t necessarily when an automaker unveils a new car.

BTW, the EPA website fueleconomy.gov has the mpg, mpge and driving range of all vehicles in production if you’re interested.

All the best,
John McElroy

09-29-2025

In AAH this week, John stated UMich – is a trusted survey… or historically accurate..

BUT.. really only among liberals?

Rather than debate the source – read the article.. Noticed your guest also corrected John on the show about how the sentiment on the survey isn’t always matching reality.

Last note – Car sales were slowing before Trump… now its the tariffs fault.? That seems to be the message as of late.. Maybe bring back Henry Payne to debate..?

-Laben

Laben,

I’ve watched the UofM confidence index for decades and it has always been a solid leading indicator of car sales. Maybe it has become politicized of late and thanks for bringing this to my attention. I will keep an eye on that.

BTW, car sales were not falling before Trump started talking about tariffs. Go back to before the election last year and everyone was predicting that sales this year would come in around 16.3 to 16.5 million. Since the tariffs hit, they’ve all lowered their forecasts. So far there’s been a pull-forward as people rushed to buy cars to avoid any tariff hits, and that’s especially true with EVs as people raced to buy before incentives go away. The latest indications are that car sales are now starting to slow.

Best,
John McElroy