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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

09-08-2025

John! You’re right. It’s not just the auto industry who needs to get decarbonized. But things are, in fact, happening outside the auto industry, you just have to look!

The power grids of the world are making progress, just look at the UK who, invented the steam engine, have practically freed their grid from coal, and are going after the fossil gas now.

And the shipping where IMO are persuing carbon neutrality with biofuels. See here

Or why not check out the EUs emissions trading system with automatically lowering of the targets, and with trading tarrifs based on the actual emissions in production and transport on for products imported to the Union, to level the playing field , for producers with dirty grids for example.

Kind regards from a keen viewer of autoline daily!
Ulf K

Ulf,

Good feedback, thanks for sending. It’s good to see progress being made on other fronts.

I was tracking emissions trading years ago when it got started, thinking it would be a good investment. There were some teething problems when it got started (lack of verification) and it stumbled badly. I’m not sure if they got that straightened out.

Best,
John McElroy

09-03-2025

Sean, my understanding is that every Tesla vehicle currently produced has virtually, if not potentially, the same hardware and software as the Robotaxis. Tell me exactly how and in what way do you believe they are functionally different.

Jim M

Jim,

First, I never said they were functionally different, just big differences between the two efforts. I agree that it seems like Supervised FSD is very similar to what is being used in Robotaxi, but we still don’t know that for sure. As of now you can’t buy a Robotaxi or the system that it uses. Also, Supervised FSD isn’t only limited to a small section of Austin, Texas like the Robotaxi is and you can have more than two riders and don’t need a safety rider on board. So, when people talk about FSD and the Robotaxi like one is related to the other, I think there’s still some confusion going on. And that’s why I wish Tesla did a better job of making that distinction.

Thanks,
Sean McElroy

09-02-2025

Sean, — Great show today. I went back and looked at the Ford GT Interior, at length. There is/are a lot of technical technologies in that passenger compartment. Which, from the rollbar, steering wheel, and door closure strap (and a lot of other items, including what’s on the floor on the passenger side) definitely move my thoughts to something other than a street vehicle. It would be great to have a breakout of identifiers for what’s inside the cockpit of this contemporary vehicle. Robert McElroy