The most exciting new and redesigned car models arriving in 2025

LeeAnn Shattuck (00:01)
Hey everyone, welcome back to The Straight Shift One of my favorite parts of my job is staying on top of all of the new model cars, trucks and SUVs. Yes, and even minivans that are coming down the pipe. I love to see the direction that the automotive industry as a whole is going as well as each individual manufacturer. And also what

entirely new brands might be entering the market, especially in that EV space. It’s just a whole new world out there and everything is changing so rapidly. And it’s going to continue to change over the next several years. So it’s difficult to keep up with everything that’s going on. And it definitely keeps me busy. It’s one of the things I do when I’m on the treadmill every morning. I am reading automotive news and press releases. And that’s one way to get that research done while also working out.

I’m a big fan of multitasking to get things done. So that’s what we’re going to focus on in today’s episode. What exciting new and fully redesigned vehicles are going to be coming out in 2025, either as a 2025 model year or more typically as a 26 model year, because the model years tend to stay a little bit ahead of the calendar years.

While I can’t go through all of the new and redesigned models because there are going to be a lot of them over the next year or so.

And while it’s really fun to see what supercar companies like Ferrari and Bugatti and other exotics are doing, I’m going to focus on the cars that real people can actually maybe afford. Within that, I’m also going to talk about the ones that I personally am most excited about, along with some that have me just shaking my head and going, what the, were they thinking? So let’s do this.

We can’t talk about new models coming out without talking about EVs. Electric vehicles are still taking the market by storm and more and more manufacturers are releasing electric vehicles. A lot of them are gonna be coming out in 2025. The future, at least for now, is definitely electric. One of the things that I find very interesting

Nissan retired their flagship sedan, Maxima, which they always refer to as a four-door sports car. And it really could be. They retired that back in June of 2023. But guess what? It’s not actually gone. It’s coming back for the 2026 model year, but as a pure electric vehicle.

The 2026 Maxima is going to ride on the company’s CMF EV platform. It’s shared with its partners Renault and Mitsubishi. And it currently underpins the Nissan Ariya, which is their current only electric vehicle. We don’t know much yet about what the trim levels or the performance or even the price tag of what the new Maxima will be, but Nissan has promised that it will live up to the Maxima moniker.

I really hope so because the Maxima was a really fun car. It’s likely to start probably around 45k and go up into the low 60s, which is a significant increase over the outgoing Maxima. But that’s just what happens when you upgrade cars, especially when you move it to an EV platform.

One of the cool things though is the 26 Maxima EV will be built here in the U.S. They have a plant in Canton, Mississippi, and it’s expected to go on sale late this year. Maybe early 26 depends on how the merger talks with Honda shake out, and if anything changes, but hopefully we’ll see that electric Maxima come out by the end of this year.

Another electric vehicle that I’m excited about is the 2026 Kia EV3. Now I’ve talked in the past about the EV6, which I also very much like. The EV3 is going to be about 14 inches shorter than the EV6, which was just released at the end of last year. But the EV3, even though it’s smaller, it’s a little bit boxier. So it looks more like kind of a baby version of the three row EV9, which I am a big fan of.

I think it’s going to be a little more of a practical vehicle because the EV6 has a very, very slopey roof line, which is cool. It looks fantastic, but it does cut into your cargo space for something that’s technically an SUV and makes rear visibility a little more limited. So I’m excited about the EV3 and what it can do. And despite the fact that it’s very small, it’s going to have a larger capacity battery option that should give it well over 300 mile range.

And that’s Kia’s target for all of their EVs. They want to be able to go more than 300 miles in any of their vehicles. The base model, which will have a smaller battery, should still be priced around 35K. And that makes it about seven or so K less.

than the EV6, as well as competitors like the Volkswagen ID.4, the MINI Countryman Electric, and the upcoming Volvo EX30. Those are all small, all-electric SUVs that are currently on the market or will be coming out very soon. But it’s exciting news for people that are looking for that SUV that’s all-electric, but is also affordable, because most of those right now,

in that size category are in the luxury brands and they’re not necessarily affordable for most people. So Kia is trying to bring us more affordable all electric vehicles that still give you a lot of bells and whistles and a lot of range. So really excited to see this little EV3 come out. Speaking of all electric and more affordable, you may remember the subcompact Chevy Bolt. It made its original debut back in December of 2016 as a 2017 model year.

It first came out in California and then was rolled out to the rest of the country. And it was a received Motor Trends car of the year for 2017. It was very going to revolutionary at the time, despite its pint size. But in January of 22, General Motors announced that the Orion Township factory where it was built in Michigan, they were going to retool that so they could produce the Silverado EV and the GMC Sierra EV, their electric pickup trucks,

which did start to roll out in 2024. So after the 23 model year, the little bolt was discontinued and people pitched a fit because it was really one of the most practical and affordable and good quality little electric cars out there. But they did promise to bring it back and they are making good on that promise. So for the 2026 model year, we get the Bolt back, but it’s very different. It’s going to be based on GM’s new Ultium EV platform that they are putting under

everything, which is good news because it’s going to give it a longer range and quicker recharge. That was one of the kind of downsides to the Bolt, but it’s not going to increase the price tag by that much. Hopefully. target is to keep the base price around $30,000 and it’ll still be built in the USA just at the Fairfax plant, which is just outside of Kansas City. So again, we’re,

kind of getting some more affordable EVs and we’re building them in the US. And so we won’t necessarily run into any tariff issues depending on what happens there. And by some miracle, if any federal tax credits end up remaining for us on electric vehicles, they should qualify. uncertain as to whether there’s going to be an all-wheel drive version in addition to front wheel drive with the little Bolt, but the Ultium platform is flexible enough to do that. It’s designed to accommodate a single motor,

in either front wheel drive or rear wheel drive configuration or a dual motor all wheel drive. So we’ve got that flexibility and I’m hoping that they will make the Bolt in all wheel drive because it’s a great little vehicle for a lot of the folks that live in the big cities up North. I bought one for a client who lives in Philadelphia and she absolutely loves it. Finally, in the EV category, the one I am most excited about is the release of the all new Hyundai IONIQ

9. It’s Hyundai’s three row all electric SUV. It’s built on the same platform as its cousin, the Kia EV9, which I have said multiple times that I really like. It’s kind of similar to the relationship between the Hyundai Palisade and the Kia Telluride. They share a lot of the same components. They’re kind of cousins, but now we’re in electric form. The IONIQ 9 is going to be slightly larger than the EV9 despite being on the same platform,

and it’s going to have a larger battery. So even the base model, IONIQ 9, will have a longer range, should be over 300 miles, which is great for a family electric vehicle. You can load everybody up and you might actually be able to get them to the beach or get them to grandma’s house, you know, over the river and through the woods without having to recharge. But if you do have to recharge, they do charge fairly quickly. And another good thing is that the IONIQ 9 is going to be the first one

to be built with the new standard NACS port. That’s the one that Tesla created. It’s become the standard. And as electric vehicles come out, they will have that port. So you don’t have to have one of those annoying adapters in order to be able to recharge at one of the Tesla fast charging stations.

I have seen pictures of this vehicle and they did a big reveal of it at the LA Auto Show last fall. And I’ll tell you, it is really good looking car. It is sleek. It strikes what I really think is a nice balance between looking futuristic and cool while still being classy and elegant. They’re supposed to go on sale this spring and we can expect prices to begin in the low 60s and go up to probably the mid 70s,

which for a three row all electric SUV, it’s actually not that bad. It’s a lot of money, yes, but I hope we’ll see that come down over the years as this technology spreads. But I’m really excited about it. And again, this is another car that’s gonna be made here in the USA. It’s gonna the road from me a few hours in Bryant, Georgia. And that’s a new mega EV plant that Hyundai Motor Corp built. And it just spit out the first IONIQ

5 just this past October. That was the first car that came off its production line. So Hyundai will be building its electric cars for the U.S. in the U.S.

There are a ton of other EVs coming out that I can’t even get into right now, because I want to talk about some that are coming out that are not all electric. There’s still going to be gas powered vehicles coming out and a lot of them are going to be hybrids. And you know that I really prefer hybrids over EVs, at least in the area of the U.S. where I live here in the South. We don’t have the same infrastructure yet. And so I like the idea of the hybrids here.

And a lot of the manufacturers are realizing as Americans are not adopting EVs quite as fast as they had hoped to recoup those R &D dollars, they realize that hybrids are really still a good thing to have in the United States. They’re gonna sell well. You may remember many years ago, least if you’re as old as I am, the sporty two-door coupe that Honda produced from 1978 to 2001, the Honda Prelude.

It was such a fun little car and, little piece of trivia… It was the first Honda to feature a moon roof. Well, the Prelude is coming back. It’s kind of like the movie studios just redoing old movies. The automakers are just bringing back old brands that they had because people know it and it’s going to get them excited. It’s not going to be some new thing like, the hell is that? Like IONIQ 9. What the heck is that? Honda knows that true Honda enthusiasts

remember the Prelude, but it’s going to come back as a hybrid. It’ll still be a little two-door sporty coupe, which I’m really excited about. And fortunately, they’re keeping it true to the Prelude name, unlike, you know, places like Mitsubishi, who brought back the Eclipse name, but instead of putting it on a fun little sports car, they put it on a small SUV. Sacrilege, don’t get me started. But at least the Prelude is going to be a Prelude.

And being a hybrid will be great because it’s going to serve as a replacement sort of because they’re discontinuing the Civic Coupe and the Accord Coupe. Those are just kind of going by the wayside, but it will also share the hybrid engine with the 25 Civic Hybrid that is already out and the Accord Hybrid, which has been out. So Honda has been making hybrids successfully in the U.S. for 25 years now. So I’m really hopeful that the little Prelude is going to be a good car.

They’ve promised to tune it for fun as well as fuel economy. So with any luck, we can have our cake and eat it too with that. I hope it’s as fun as it looks because I you, it looks awesome. It is a great looking little car. And they’re saying it’s going to be priced in the $30s. So decently affordable, you know, by today’s new car standards. We are grading on a curve now.

But that’s not too bad. And once again, made in the USA. Really excited about that. So the Prelude should hit dealer lots before the end of this year. So if you’re looking to get back into a two door fun, sporty car, here’s a great opportunity to do it without sacrificing a lot of fuel economy.

And finally, Mazda and Subaru are getting some hybrids. That has been the biggest hole in those two brands lineups to date. Granted, Subaru has had the Crosstrek hybrid off and on over the years. It’s kind of been a hit or miss thing. But now they are both getting true hybrid, good hybrid vehicles. Mazda has already brought out the CX-50 as a hybrid.

You may have seen commercials for them. They’ve really been pushing it. And this uses the same 2.5 liter hybrid motor that is out of the Toyota RAV4 hybrid. Mazda just wanted to be able to get a hybrid out, get it out fast. They have a relationship with Toyota. Toyota actually owns, I think it’s about 20 % of both Mazda and Subaru. So they have access to that technology and they’re co-developing electric vehicle technology, but…

Mazda basically mooched the RAV4 hybrid engine and shoved it into the CX-50 so they could get that out to market and say that they have a hybrid. And it should be great because that is a fantastic engine in the RAV4 hybrid. And for the 26 model year, they’re going to make the CX-5, which is one of my favorite compact SUVs, that’s getting a hybrid. But they’re not just gonna shove the motor from the RAV in there. They are going to develop their own hybrid

system that will be built in-house by Mazda. Now why you ask would they do that when they have access to Toyota’s hybrid stuff? Why would you not reuse that RAV engine? It’s great. Well Mazda has always been a very unique brand and they like doing things their own way and they really want to make sure that their brand stays unique.

And Toyota is not necessarily known for as much fun. So Mazda wants to create something that is uniquely their own and fits their more zoom zoom brand identity. don’t just want to be a Toyota in disguise. So doing that, they’re creating this new hybrid setup and they are talking about making it based on their rotary engine. Remember Mazda has had two iterations of the rotary engine with

mixed success, but I’m excited about it because we had a first generation Mazda RX-7 and it was the first rotary engine and the torque was amazing and I absolutely loved it. It was the car that first kind of taught me about driving stick. Granted I was seven when my father bought it, but he still taught me. So I have a very heartfelt feelings for the rotary engine, but I’m also aware of the problems that it’s had. So it’ll be interesting to see

how they make a hybrid rotary engine. I wouldn’t necessarily go out and buy the very first one. Let’s see how it shakes out, but they are developing a rotary engine again. That is already in the works. So this is happening folks, and it’s gonna be really interesting to see kind of really what that powertrain looks like when the CX-5 hybrid rolls out in 2026.

But if you want a hybrid Mazda in the meantime, you got that CX-50. That’s a really cool car.

Subaru is also maximizing their partnership with Toyota and they are pairing the Toyota hybrid technology with their own Subaru boxer, which is a flat four engine. Fortunately, it is not the old 2.0 boxer engine of previous generations, which quite frankly was rather lethargic. They’ve developed a new 2.5 boxer engine and that is going in the upcoming 2026

redesigned Subaru Crosstrek. Now I said Subaru has done the Crosstrek in a hybrid twice before, both short runs. The first one was from 2014 to 2016 and that was a regular hybrid and they canned that and then they brought it back again from 21 to 23 but as a plug-in hybrid. You didn’t see them all over the country. A lot of them were in California but that didn’t go so well either. Like I said, hopefully third time is the charm,

because they desperately need hybrids. And it’s not just any hybrid, Subaru is calling it a strong hybrid. And that’s because it is a series parallel system that propels the vehicle either with the combustion engine or the electric motor, depending on what is needed for the specific driving situation that you are in. That’s actually very similar to how the Toyota Prius functions. Hopefully this will be a little more fun than the But the bottom line is you get more power

and better fuel economy at the same time. So again, you can have your cake and eat it too. That same system is going to be going into the Forester Hybrid, which is expected to come out late this spring as a 25 model. We won’t have to wait as long. And that’s probably going to have a starting price in the low 30s. And then the Crosstrek Hybrid will follow in the fall as a 26 model. And it’ll probably start a few thousand dollars less, maybe 27, 28,000. But

Woohoo! Finally, hybrids from Mazda and Subaru.

And of course, there are still some regular old internal combustion engine models that will be coming out. Honda is redesigning the Passport for 2026. And I like the looks of it. You know, the Passport till now has really just been a two row version of the Pilot. So it just kind of looks like a short Pilot. There really wasn’t anything as distinctive about it.

But now it’s going to look a lot more rugged. It’s going to have its own identity separate from that Pilot. I think the auto industry has been on a mission of late with SUVs to make it at least look like they can go off road, you know, not just pick up the kids from school, but the Passport might actually be able to pull it off in the great outdoors. It’s getting a stiffer chassis courtesy of Honda’s small light truck platform, and it’s getting a beefed up suspension.

And they are sticking with a naturally aspirated V6. I swear this is probably the last of the naturally aspirated V6s that are going to be available on the market, but it’s going to have more power than the current one. And it’s now going to be married to Honda’s 10-speed automatic and an upgraded all-wheel drive system. I really hope they have worked out some of the kinks in the programming of that 10-speed transmission because

it can be very jerky, especially in the low gears, and that is not what you want if you are going off road because you need those low gears a lot of the time. But we’ll find out soon enough because that 2026 Passport is due to hit dealer lots early this year with prices starting in the mid 40s. On the Acura side of the Honda Acura fence, they’re coming out with the ADX. It should be coming out

anytime now as a 2025 model and it’s an all new subcompact SUV from Acura that’s going to sit below the RDX. It’s a little bit smaller, a little bit less expensive. It’s going to be their new entry level vehicle. It will share the same platform as the Acura Integra, the Honda Civic and the Honda HR-V. So the ADX is going to be the same size as the HR-V,

but it’s gonna use the drivetrain out of the Integra, which is a 1.5 liter turbo paired with a CVT transmission. So it should be a little more fun to drive than the HR-V and it will distinguish it more as an Acura and not just an extra fancy Honda. It should start in about the mid thirties, making it about $5,000 less than some of its big competitors like the BMW X1 and the Lexus NX.

Not too bad for an entry-level luxury SUV. Of course, there’s also some really stupid shit coming out. We gotta talk about this. I think the designers at Ford may have gotten really, really drunk one night and said, hey man, let’s make a 700 horsepower Mustang, but put

a Raptor suspension on it. let’s charge a hundred grand for it and see if anyone’s dumb enough to buy it. Yes, there is going to be a 2026 Mustang Raptor. And this is not the case of what they did with the Mach-E and called it a Mustang, even though it’s not. It’s a totally different vehicle. It’s an electric vehicle. This actually is a Mustang with an off-road suspension. It looks a little bit weird.

It looks a little cool. had do have to admit, but I mean, really guys, a hundred grand for this very specific and totally impractical toy that’s obviously designed for people having a midlife crisis. Great. You know, half the country cannot afford your vehicles. Perhaps you should spend your R and D dollars on making affordable cars. Or hey… maybe making the cars that you already have actually work without all the

problems. So I’m really not sure what they were thinking with with doing this and it’ll be interesting to see who actually buys them. At least Ford is talking about bringing back the Fiesta hatchback, but as an electric vehicle that would hopefully be priced in the mid twenties. That at least would be a game changer for the EV market in the U S because we need more affordable vehicles and more affordable electric vehicles.

This project at Ford actually has a chance of being successful because it is headed up by a former top Tesla engineer who got out of that toxic work environment and went to work for Ford to develop their EV technology. So I think that would actually be a good thing. And I liked the Fiesta hatchback. It had its little issues, but it was a fun little car. And again, it was affordable. It was a hatchback, so it had some practicality to it. I want them to start bringing back cars like that,

that people can afford, especially people who are first starting out, you coming out of college or coming out of high school and going into a job. They don’t have kids and a family yet. They just need an affordable piece of transportation. And if we can get that in the electric world too, I think that would be really great. And definitely a better use of Ford’s R &D dollars a 700 horsepower Mustang with a Raptor suspension. Not that I would turn down the opportunity to drive that if they offered it.

One more thing that I’m kinda shakin’ my head at and chuckling. Mercedes is releasing an all-electric version of the G-Wagon. For a whomping, $163,000 It’s gonna be coming out later this year. You know, just not sure what to think about that. Mercedes wants to prove that there are no limits to electric technology and show just how capable

an EV can be off-road. But all I can think of is, hmm, okay, you’re out there in the great outdoors, you’re exploring, you’re going off-road. So when you inevitably run out of electrons, hey, at least you’ll be stranded in style. But what I am truly and genuinely most excited about that will be released

in 2025 is the fully redesigned 2026 model year Hyundai Palisade. If you’ve known me for more than five minutes, you know that the Palisade and its cousin, the Kia Telluride, are my favorite, favorite three row midsize SUVs. I would take a fully loaded one of those

over really any of the luxury brands. And that’s how great they are and how classy they can be when you get into those top trim levels like the Calligraphy on the Palisade and the SX Pro on the Telluride, which is a little more edgy, a little more badass, how I like to roll. are redesigning the Palisade. Both the Palisade and the Telluride came out in 2020. They had a little refresh a couple of years ago, but now they are getting full redesigns.

And the Palisade, we have seen this car, what it looks like now because they just released it in the Korean market. It is getting boxier. And I don’t know how I feel about that because as much as I love boxy and I love the new design of the Santa Fe, but I love the really classic look of the old Palisades. So I think this is just going to have to grow on me a little bit. They’re calling it the Korean

Range Rover and I know they stole some of the styling cues from Range Rover but without the reliability problems so that’s you know that’s great. What’s really exciting is that we should be getting a hybrid version in the US.

Now it’s not clear if we’re getting both a regular gas powered and a hybrid option like we have with the Santa Fe, even if they just go full bore and say, hey, the Palisades are now hybrids, period, I am not going to be upset with that because we desperately need more good size, practical three row midsize SUVs that are hybrids. Because when you get into needing three rows, because you actually do need to shove

humans in that third row on a regular basis. We need that fuel economy to haul our families around. And I can’t think of a vehicle better poised to do that than the Palisade. It will finally give us alternative to the Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid and its cousin, the Lexus TX Hybrid, which are both great vehicles, but they were on stop sale for like eight months because of an airbag deployment issue. And they are just now

starting to roll back out. We should start seeing the first of those vehicles hit dealer lots late January, early February. So for those of you that have been on the wait list for those, hopefully you’ll be able to start getting one. That’s really the only hybrid game in town when you’re talking about a larger midsize usable third row SUV, that’s also a hybrid. So Toyota Lexus better watch out because the Hyundai Palisade coming in a hybrid,

that’s going to definitely give them some competition. And yeah, it’s always risky to buy the first year of a brand new or redesigned vehicle. That’s one it might be worth taking a risk on, especially being backed by the

long warranty of five years, 60,000 full and 10 year, a hundred thousand power train. So if the Palisades being redesigned, does that mean the cousin Kia Telluride is being redesigned? Yes. Yes it is. We do not have as much information on that. We just know that the development code name in Korea is LQ2, whatever the heck that stands for, but we know that it is happening. Kia is just playing their cards close to their vest, a car,

in its wrapped camouflage has been spotted in California. And hopefully that will also come with the hybrid because Kia has committed to hybrids and plug-in hybrids as well. So we might even see plug-in hybrid versions of these two cars in the future. So I’m very excited about that. The new 2026 Palisade should arrive by

the end of or before the end of 2025. So I’m hoping around fall and the Telluride will probably lag behind that. So if you are going to be in the market for a brand new vehicle and you don’t mind taking a little bit of a risk with a new model or a redesigned model,

Definitely some fun stuff coming down the pipe. Thanks for joining me folks. And remember if you want to gain all of my knowledge and my methodology for how I shop for my clients and how I get them the best deal on the perfect car for them, including their trade, their financing, all of my knowledge and methodology is in my online car buying course, the No BS Guide to Buying a Car, your inside track to getting the best deal.

And can get that on my website at TheCarChick.com or directly at CarBuyingCourse.com. Thanks again, folks. If you haven’t subscribed to the show, please do so. And until next week, I’m out of here. Drive safely.