Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Electric Vehicles

The EVs to Get Excited About in 2025

Even with Trump in the White House, we’ll still have electric vehicles.

An EV charger.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

It would be easy to feel down about the state of electric vehicles with an avowed EV foe set to reenter the White House. Yes, the election’s fallout will no doubt reshape the car market in the years to come. But in the short term, there’s good news in the form of the new slate of EVs already in the pipeline. For those looking to ditch their fossil fuel-burner for an electric model, there’s plenty to be excited about in 2025.

A Slate of Shiny New Crossovers

Having long since displaced the minivan and the sedan as America’s family car, the crossover is the most important piece of the electric car market, and the biggest seller. Next year, we’ll welcome a slew of new models.

Hyundai’s Ioniq EVs have been a hit, with the hatchback/crossover hybrid Ioniq 5 selling impressive numbers (more than 30,000 in the first three quarters of 2024) and the quirky Ioniq 6 sedan earning rave reviews. The Korean brand will be filling out more Ioniq numbers in the years to come, and 2025’s major arrival in terms of size and importance is the three-row Ioniq 9 SUV. The sharp-looking big boy joins the EV9 by Hyundai’s partner brand, Kia, in offering a more affordable EV for those who need to move six or seven people at a time.

The Hyundai Ioniq 9.The Hyundai Ioniq 9Hyundai

Audi was a pioneer offerer of EVs in America: The original Audi e-Tron came to the U.S. in 2019, when Tesla was just starting to sell the Model 3 and many legacy brands had yet to enter the electric market. That model’s 204-mile range looks puny and outdated by today’s standards, however. Next year, Audi is slated to roll out a much-anticipated update to the lineup with the Q6 e-tron (and its A6 e-tron sedan counterpart) delivering a respectable 350 miles of battery power.

The Audi Q6.The Audi Q6Audi

The EV startups are expanding their lineups, too. No, we won’t see the new, more affordable Rivians until at least 2026. Lucid, however, plans to inflate the successful Air sedan up to the size of a three-row SUV when it introduces the Gravity, which it claims will deliver 440 miles of range. The story is similar at Polestar, where the upcoming Polestar 3 SUV looks like an expanded version of the Polestar 2 sedan that’s been on sale for several years now.

Remember Chrysler? The erstwhile member of Detroit’s Big Three had withered to a brand that, in the U.S., sells only minivans and the obsolete 300 sedan. Stellantis (parent company of Chrysler, Ram, Jeep, and others) has pinned its hopes for an American revival on electrification, which includes an EV Chrysler crossover planned for 2025. It looks to be called the Airflow and will target the Ford Mustang Mach-E as its competitor.

The Chrysler Airflow.The Chrysler AirflowChrysler

The same is true of another decaying American giant. Cadillac, fresh off some success with the Lyriq EV (20,000-plus sold through Q3 2024), is pushing out a slate of electric vehicles in the hopes of reminding buyers of its former glory. The smaller Optiq, three-row Vistiq, and extravagant Escalade iq are soon to join the brand’s EV lineup, the latter bringing the icon of early 2000s wealth-bragging into the electric age.

The Cadillac Escalade iq.The Cadillac Escalade iqCadillac

EVs Go Off-Road

For those who swear by the go-anywhere potential of the true 4x4, battery power is a tough sell — there aren’t too many plugs in the backcountry. Yet as EV driving ranges get longer and EVs get more capable, the icons of off-roading are coming around.

Jeep, which has introduced plug-in hybrid models of some of its best-selling SUVs, is at last taking the all-electric plunge. No, you won’t be able to buy an EV Jeep Wrangler, which is still years away. (Stellantis is being cautious with its icon.) But we are on the cusp of having the Jeep Recon, a mid-size EV 4x4, as well as an EV version of the big, luxe Wagoneer called the Jeep Wagoneer S.

The Jeep Wagoneer S.The Jeep Wagoneer SJeep

Wagoneer won’t be alone in the market for expensive luxury SUV EVs. Land Rover is telling anyone who’ll listen about the torture testing it is now performing on the upcoming Range Rover EV, subjecting prototypes to the 120-degree heat of the UAE’s desert. Arriving soon alongside the electric Range Rover is the battery-powered version of Mercedes-Benz’s G-Wagen, a $170,00 status symbol.

Odds and Ends

We may be on the cusp of seeing the titans of muscle embrace electricity. At last month’s L.A. Auto Show, Dodge’s machismo-dripping presentation of the Charger Daytona EV promised the brawny battery-powered pony car would “save our planet … from all those lame, soulless, weak-looking, self-driving sleep pods.” With silent power that more than matches its combustion days, the Charger should win converts to the church of instantaneous electric torque. Oh, and in 2025, we just might get a look at the fully electric Chevy Corvette that’s in the works.

The Dodge Charger EV.The Dodge Charger EVDodge

For those with no interest in dropping a wheelbarrow of cash on an electric sports car, fear not: The Chevy Bolt is coming back. The plucky, affordable Bolt was the best-selling non-Tesla EV when GM suddenly gave it the axe to focus on its Ultium EV platform. Chevrolet says it’ll release the new, Ultium-based Bolt in 2025, and that this version will feature faster charging and other bells and whistles lacking in the original car.

Finally, the most fascinating offering to come next year is the 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger, the first time range-extender EV technology comes to one of America’s best-selling vehicles. Like a normal EV, the Ramcharger has electric motors to propel it, a battery to store electricity, and can be plugged in to charge the battery, however, it also carries a gasoline engine that can turn on to recharge the battery when necessary. If this hopefully seamless version of a hybrid convinces America’s legion of truck buyers, it’ll go a long way toward advancing the pace of EV adoption.

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Energy

Trump Wants to Prop Up Coal Plants. They Keep Breaking Down.

According to a new analysis shared exclusively with Heatmap, coal’s equipment-related outage rate is about twice as high as wind’s.

Donald Trump as Sisyphus.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration wants “beautiful clean coal” to return to its place of pride on the electric grid because, it says, wind and solar are just too unreliable. “If we want to keep the lights on and prevent blackouts from happening, then we need to keep our coal plants running. Affordable, reliable and secure energy sources are common sense,” Chris Wright said on X in July, in what has become a steady drumbeat from the administration that has sought to subsidize coal and put a regulatory straitjacket around solar and (especially) wind.

This has meant real money spent in support of existing coal plants. The administration’s emergency order to keep Michigan’s J.H. Campbell coal plant open (“to secure grid reliability”), for example, has cost ratepayers served by Michigan utility Consumers Energy some $80 million all on its own.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Spotlight

The New Transmission Line Pitting Trump’s Rural Fans Against His Big Tech Allies

Rural Marylanders have asked for the president’s help to oppose the data center-related development — but so far they haven’t gotten it.

Donald Trump, Maryland, and Virginia.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

A transmission line in Maryland is pitting rural conservatives against Big Tech in a way that highlights the growing political sensitivities of the data center backlash. Opponents of the project want President Trump to intervene, but they’re worried he’ll ignore them — or even side with the data center developers.

The Piedmont Reliability Project would connect the Peach Bottom nuclear plant in southern Pennsylvania to electricity customers in northern Virginia, i.e.data centers, most likely. To get from A to B, the power line would have to criss-cross agricultural lands between Baltimore, Maryland and the Washington D.C. area.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Hotspots

Trump Punished Wind Farms for Eagle Deaths During the Shutdown

Plus more of the week’s most important fights around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Wayne County, Nebraska – The Trump administration fined Orsted during the government shutdown for allegedly killing bald eagles at two of its wind projects, the first indications of financial penalties for energy companies under Trump’s wind industry crackdown.

  • On November 3, Fox News published a story claiming it had “reviewed” a notice from the Fish and Wildlife Service showing that it had proposed fining Orsted more than $32,000 for dead bald eagles that were discovered last year at two of its wind projects – the Plum Creek wind farm in Wayne County and the Lincoln Land Wind facility in Morgan County, Illinois.
  • Per Fox News, the Service claims Orsted did not have incidental take permits for the two projects but came forward to the agency with the bird carcasses once it became aware of the deaths.
  • In an email to me, Orsted confirmed that it received the letter on October 29 – weeks into what became the longest government shutdown in American history.
  • This is the first action we’ve seen to date on bird impacts tied to Trump’s wind industry crackdown. If you remember, the administration sent wind developers across the country requests for records on eagle deaths from their turbines. If companies don’t have their “take” permits – i.e. permission to harm birds incidentally through their operations – they may be vulnerable to fines like these.

2. Ocean County, New Jersey – Speaking of wind, I broke news earlier this week that one of the nation’s largest renewable energy projects is now deceased: the Leading Light offshore wind project.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow