1. Renault 5
There’s an article to be done on why car-makers keep looking backwards just as they need to take a leap forwards - but this isn’t it. Instead, allow me to draw your attention to the Renault 5, another all-new car with an old name.
This rebooted-for-2025 Renault 5 is a small electric car - think of it as a Mini Cooper or Fiat 500 rival, both also retro-inspired - which riffs off the classic Cinq/Super Cinq styling.
It looks great, with the throwbacks to the original car continuing inside, such as with the design of the seats and dashboard.
Beneath the surface, however, this is a very modern car. Batteries of 40kWh and 52kWh are offered, with 121bhp and 148bhp motors respectively. The smaller battery yields a range of up to 190 miles, the larger offers just under 250 miles.
Read more: Turbo boost: New Renault 5 Turbo 3E will have 500bhp on tap
It’s cheaper than the equivalent Mini, too, with prices starting at £23k. Renault is launching the 5 with some attractive finance offers, with monthly payments as low as £182.
The 5 is the first in a trio of small retro-inspired EVs from Renault. It will soon be joined re-imagined for the EV era utilitarian Renault 4 and cute Renault Twingo.
2. Dacia Bigster
For a more conventional take on the 2025 family car, look to Dacia, where nominative determinism is alive and well in the chunky form of the Bigster.
Dacia has built a successful business out of no-nonsense value-for-money cars, and the Bigster is no different. It’s an SUV in the vein of a Nissan Qashqai, Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson et al, but will cost thousands less than those cars. Official prices have yet to be announced, but expect them to run from between £25,000 and £30,000.
Aside from the pricing, the Bigster has something of the X factor about it; where so many of its rivals are bland, the uber-Dacia is desirable. There’s a scaled down Land Rover Defender vibe about it.
You can get the Bigster with four-wheel-drive, though most owners will find the front-wheel-drive car suits their needs. Drivetrains are 48 volt mild hybrids, with petrol power courtesy of 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbos, and a full hybrid, which uses a 1.8-litre four-cylinder engine.
Dacia promises a spacious interior, including a very large boot, with all sorts of practical and sensible touches that emphasise the Bigster has been created around families.
Expect to see plenty of them on our roads during 2025.
Read more: Dacia Bigster: The bargain family SUV we’ve been waiting for
3. Kia EV3
Kia’s latest electric car, the strikingly futuristic EV3, should be starting to appear on Northern Ireland roads right about now.
The EV3 is the most family friendly and affordable EV yet from Kia, with prices running from just under £33k to around £44k. You get a seven-year/100,000-mile warranty, too.
There’s a 58.3kWh battery model which is good for 270 miles of range, according to the official tests. Most EV3s will be ordered with a larger 81.4kWh battery, which opens up ranges of between 360 miles and 375 miles on a full charge.
Read more: Kia EV3: The cool electric family SUV your kids will want to be seen in
It’s around the size of a traditional family hatchback - something like a Volkswagen Golf or Ford Focus - but an awful lot more practical and liveable.
The EV3 riffs off the seven-seat EV9′s styling, as will the next entry in the series. We should see the Sportage-sized EV5 at some point in 2025, further underlining Kia’s credentials as not only one of the top electric car companies but also a manufacturer of cars your kids will want to be seen in.
4. Jaguar GT
After the attention-grabbing - and not necessarily in a good way - video that previewed the latest relaunch of one of motoring’s most storied marques, we got to see the Type 00 concept car.
It’s a flamboyant statement of intent, as Jaguar owner, the Indian conglomerate Tata, seeks to pitch into direct competition with Bentley, Porsche, Aston Martin and - perhaps - even Rolls-Royce.
Type 00′s unveiling also coincided with Jaguar ceasing production of its existing line-up. It’s a drastic step, but one that’s needed if the nameplate is to survive; Jaguar has been floundering and haemorrhaging sales for years. Meanwhile, its sister company, Land Rover, can do no wrong and a slice of its sizeable profits are being used to fund Jaguar’s revival.
As well as its outlandish styling, Type 00 uses materials including brass and travertine stone in its interior, while the company talks of power outputs of 1,000bhp…
We should see the first of the new Jaguar road cars this year. A four-door GT is expected to arrive first. Will it be as bold - and as expensive - as the Type 00 promises?
5. Volkswagen ID2
Volkswagen is in dire straits - and not in the Mark Knopfler sense - with a bunch of major headaches ranging from too much capacity to electric cars that not enough people want to buy. It is also under pressure in China - the world’s largest car market - where its share has halved in less than five years, and it’s feeling the heat in Europe too.
Just before Christmas VW reached a deal to cut 35,000 jobs by 2030 as part of a restructuring plan intended to save €4 billion - less than either company management or the financial markets expected, meaning the share price has taken a hit.
Car companies, even massive ones like VW, live or die by their product. Which means the ID2, VW’s next big EV launch, is hugely important.
The ID2 will be smaller but also cheaper than the overpriced ID3 - it needs to be - and promises to be a more user-friendly car, with the return of easy-to-operate controls with switches and buttons as well as touchscreens.
Whether the ID2 has what it takes to compete with everything from the Renault 5 to the Fiat Grande Panda remains to be seen, but it could be the car that saves Volkswagen.
6. Fiat Grande Panda
Having already plundered its Cinquecento heritage for all its worth, Fiat is now turning its attention to another of its iconic models, the Panda.
In fact, it plans to breed a whole family of Pandas, something that eludes zoos the world over.
First up is the Grande Panda, a Renault 5 rival complete with boxy silhouette and lots of interesting design details, from the ‘Panda’ stamped into the lower edge of the doors to the hammock-style dashboard.
Read more: New Fiat Grande Panda to be one of the most affordable EVs
It shares a platform with other cars in the Stellantis family, such as the Citroen e-C3, which means a 44kWh battery and a range of around 195 miles. One neat touch is the built in charging cable, which spirals from the front of the car. Maybe other manufacturers will adopt this idea too?
7. IM L6
There’s a lot to take in with the IM L6, which marks another example of just how advanced Chinese car-making has become.
Read more: Chinese electric cars are giving Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes nightmares
Size-wise, the IM - or ‘Intelligent Mobility’, as SAIC, its parent company which also owns MG would have it - is a direct Tesla Model 3 rival.
You can have it with a common-or-garden lithium ion battery or a cutting edge 123.7kWh semi-solid state battery. It promises a range of more than 500 miles and a 0-62mph time of less than three seconds.
It’s already on sale in China and should reach us sometime this year.
