Month: November 2025

[Written with the help of GPT-5]

In August 2005, the Australian newspaper The Age published an article titled “What the future holds,” (https://www.theage.com.au/national/what-the-future-holds-20050803-ge0mk3.html) which tried to predict the state of automotive technology and consumer habits twenty years into the future. Looking ahead to 2025, the article predicted dramatic shifts in vehicle propulsion, engineering, consumer expectations, and the driving experience itself. The tone was confident and occasionally utopian, assuming that rapid technological innovation — particularly in fuel efficiency, materials science, and automation — would fundamentally reshape the automobile.

Though the article first went to pains to highlight the uncertainty of forecasting the future, it went back on that sentiment by declaring that the sentiments of five experts aligned to such an extent that “a surprisingly clear picture of 2025 emerges.” With hindsight, it’s now clear what a mistake that was. While some predictions were close, most failed, either by overestimating the pace or misjudging the direction of technological development or by misreading consumer preferences and market forces. The following analysis evaluates each of the article’s major claims, which were confidently described as “sure-fire predictions for 2025.”

1. Diesels will account for half of all new vehicles sold.

Wrong. Diesel vehicles account for only about 33% of all new, light vehicles sold in Australia. Furthermore, the segment’s share of new sales looks to be slowly shrinking over time.
https://cleantechnica.com/2025/08/07/electric-vehicle-sales-in-australia-new-zealand-subdued/

2. CVT transmissions will outnumber manuals and automatics combined.

Almost certainly wrong. Among the top ten passenger vehicles sold new in Australia last year, only two (the Toyota Corolla and RAV-4) had continuously variable transmissions. The other eight most popular models had traditional manual or automatic transmissions.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/australian-new-car-sales-in-2024-december/

3. Cars will be 30 per cent lighter and physically smaller on average.

Wrong. The average new Australian passenger vehicle is bigger and heavier now than in 2005, and most of them are SUVs or pickup trucks (“utes”). Additionally, the most popular sedan sold in Australia, the Toyota Corolla, swelled from 2,530 to 2,955 lbs over the last 20 years. Generally speaking, car models have crept upward in weight since 2005.
https://autotalk.com.au/industry-news/rise-rise-australias-emissions-vehicle-weight
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australians-love-heavy-cars-why-is-that-a-problem/ng94l9gsq

4. Average fuel consumption will be down 50 per cent per vehicle.

Wrong. The average fuel consumption of Australian passenger vehicles hit a lowpoint in 2014, but rose until at least 2018 thanks to the increased popularity of gas-guzzling SUVs and pickup trucks. The government only instituted fuel efficiency requirements in 2024. Post-2018 data are hard to find, but no technological breakthroughs in car engines or hybrid gas-electric engines have happened since 2005 that have doubled fuel efficiency. Returning to the example of the Toyota Corolla, the 2005 model got 26/35 mpg (city/highway driving) and the 2025 model gets 32/41 mpg.
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/d0bd25_9527cdcb01a84440a53308b3b5624320.pdf
https://www.ravim.com.au/fuel-efficiency-still-lagging/

5. Luxury cars will offer light-refracting, colour-changing paint.

Wrong. In 2022, BMW unveiled a concept vehicle called the “IX Flow” that could change the colors and patterns of its body thanks to having an e-ink skin, but the car never went into production.

6. Visual advertising will permeate the cabin and outer skin of cars.

Wrong (mercifully). To be fair, car drivers and passengers in Australia and everywhere else are still permeated with ads while in their vehicles, but from the smartphones they use while riding.

7. Autopilot will still be 20 years off (thankfully).

Probably right. The article defines “autopilot” as a car feature that “takes over driving completely,” so it’s fair to assume they envision it being able to drive safely and efficiently in every circumstance where a human could, not just on an orderly highway with predictable traffic. That said, cars with true “autopilot” technology don’t yet exist, though Tesla just introduced the “Full Self-Driving” car option in Australia last year. I think about 20 more years is a reasonable amount of time required to develop truly autonomous cars.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-24/tesla-self-driving-technology-rules-differ-around-australia/105808104

8. We’ll still be complaining about congestion and fuel prices.

Probably right, though where in the world do people living in any metro area NOT complain about traffic congestion and fuel prices? I couldn’t find enough good data to definitely assess this prediction, but the 2024 INRIX Traffic Scorecard ranked Brisbane as having the tenth worst traffic of any city in the world. Melbourne, Sydney and Perth were 21st, 45th, and 103rd, respectively. The Scorecard assessed 945 cities, and the fact that a country with as small a population as Australia’s was consistently high on the list speaks to a problem with urban traffic congestion.

According to the creatively titled “Report on the Australian petroleum market” from June 2024, the inflation-adjusted price of gasoline (petrol) was about 180 cents per litre in 2005 and was about 195 cents in mid-2024. Given the marginally higher price and the proliferation of gas-guzzling large passenger vehicles, it’s fair to assume Australians are complaining about gas prices about as much now as they were in 2005. https://inrix.com/scorecard/#city-ranking-list
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/08/brisbane-traffic-congestion-ranked-10th-worst-in-world-but-experts-question-black-box-analysis
https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/petrol-quarterly-report-june24.pdf

9. Road safety measures will be education-based and constructive, not punitive.

Wrong. Googling “Australia driving penalties” reveals the country’s state governments still rely on traditional measures like monetary fines and license suspensions to enforce compliance with road safety laws.

10. Some car parts will be assembled atom by atom using nanotechnology.

Wrong. The techniques remain too expensive and finicky to use outside of the lab.

Encapsulating the article’s failure is the fact that one of its experts was an executive at “Holden,” a major Australian car company, and it described a futuristic Holden car from 2025. The company went bankrupt and stopped making cars in 2017. The predictions made no allowance for such structural collapse, they assumed continuity: that carmakers would remain stable; that the business of building cars in Australia would carry on.

The 2025 predictions also conspicuously omit mention of electric cars. According to the latest data from the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC), they accounted for 12.1% of all new-car sales in the first half of 2025, up from 9–10% in 2024.

Instead of lightweight, atom-assembled sedans roaming quiet streets, Australia’s roads in 2025 are filled with heavy SUVs, pickups, and a growing number of electric vehicles — the tastes and technologies that the 2005 piece overlooked. Meanwhile, the local industry, once personified by Holden, has collapsed, undercutting the assumption of continuity and industrial stability.

Taken together, these failures — in technology forecasting, in market predictions, in industry stability — reveal a broader truth: even respected publications and analysts can be spectacularly wrong about the future. As we see, the reality is shaped not just by incremental progress (slightly better engines, modest paint-tech experiments), but by sweeping transformation: electrification, market collapse, and changing tastes.