How did Autocar's 2021 predictions fare?

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6 mins read

30 December 2021

Each year, we stick our necks out to make some bold predictions about what we think might happen over the next 12 months.

We don’t mind admitting when we get things wrong, though, so it’s only right that we reflect on how we fared last year.

New cars

More in hope than expectation, we predicted a better alternative to touchscreens. We reckoned it would be called ‘buttons’ and hoped that many firms would use them. Alas, there’s no stopping the rise of the touchscreen, although we’re pleased to see new cars such as the Kia EV6 and others are giving complementary buttons a future.

We also reckoned Bangernomics would become big, as the rising cost of new cars and the declining need to use them, owing to home working, would prompt a shift to cheaper used models. We were partly right: there has been a rush for used cars, but it has been caused by a chip crisis creating a shortage of new cars and thus pushing up used car prices. Kind of the opposite of Bangernomics, that – but it does mean there has never been a better time to invest in a cheap car that won’t depreciate and is easy to own.

Another thing we were wrong about was the decline of the sports coupé. The class is becoming increasingly niche, but that means firms are able to cater more to purists than they previously have. Therefore, the year’s two new sports coupé arrivals, the Toyota GR86 and BMW 2 Series Coupé, are spectacularly good purist’s cars.

Another way-out prediction was that McLaren would announce its first SUV. It didn’t, making the firm a bit of an industry holdout. It must come at some point, though, surely?

Industry

We predicted that more car makers would follow the lead of Bentley, Volkswagen and Volvo in confirming plans to go electric-only. They did. Most of the Stellantis brands set dates to go EV-only, as did several others – with the caveat that many only applied the dates to certain markets, such as Europe.

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We suggested the Chinese would follow the lead of Geely and SAIC in buying up more European brands. But why buy a European brand when you can just enter Europe with your own? This was the year in which Hongqi, Nio, Ora, Wey, Xpeng and more set out their stalls, some with good EVs.

We also predicted that more defunct marques could be revived, and this year brought us the promise of new cars from Bristol, Moke, Radford and others. We’re still waiting for that TVR, though…

We also predicted more dealer network conglomeration, through the bigger groups snapping up smaller firms. And that definitely is happening, as Marshall Motor Group’s recent purchase of Motorline shows.

Car sales

Our boldest prediction on car sales was that the Ford Fiesta – Britain’s best-selling car every year since 2009 – wouldn’t be the Blue Oval’s top model in 2021. That seemed crazy – until you factored in not only the huge popularity of the related Ford Puma crossover but also the increasing pressure from rival superminis.

And it was incredibly close: at the end of October, Ford had sold 26,899 Fiestas and 26,744 Pumas. That’s too close to call, but it seems certain the Fiesta’s streak as Britain’s favourite car is ending: it’s way off the Vauxhall Corsa, 35,183 examples of which were sold in the same 10 months.

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We also tipped EVs’ UK new-car market share to hit 10% in or just after 2022 – and it seems that we were quite pessimistic. At the time of writing, 15.2% of cars sold this year (that’s 16,155 units) have been battery-electric, which is more than double the number of diesel-engined machines sold.

That’s just one way in which the pandemic and the chip crisis affected our predictions. We suggested that manufacturers will start paring back their model ranges as consolidation and cost-cutting accelerated post-pandemic. That’s certainly happening in some instances, although largely through the elimination of diesel powertrains and chip shortages forcing firms to focus on key model lines.

We also believed the Toyota GR Yaris would be a huge hit that could revive the hot hatch market. That was backed up by the waiting list for the car stretching more than a year (even before the chip crisis really bit). In fact, perhaps the best sign of the impact of the Toyota’s impact is that there already seems to be a backlash from people claiming it’s overhyped. Those people are wrong, by the way.

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Motorsport

After much of the 2020 motorsport season took place behind closed doors, we predicted that fans would flock back to tracks this year. The sight of huge crowds at Formula 1 races proved that right. It still felt a bit odd seeing so many people in one place, but there’s no doubt that the fans at Silverstone and Zandvoort really added to the atmosphere.

We nearly smashed two of our on-track predictions in one race. We predicted that Sebastian Vettel would put Aston Martin on the F1 podium, and the four-time champion did just that with second in Hungary, where he was beaten by an Alpine driver. That was good, because we predicted that an Alpine driver would win a race – we just picked the wrong one, tipping Fernando Alonso for glory. But we will take partial credit, since the Spaniard’s firm defence of Sir Lewis Hamilton in that race played a key role in helping team-mate Esteban Ocon take victory.

One prediction we declined to make has made us look daft: we opted not to suggest that Hamilton would win a record eighth F1 world title. We said that wouldn’t be “so much a prediction as a likely statement of fact”. Nothing was settled at the time of writing, but Max Verstappen proved that we shouldn’t have been quite so definitive...

Our prediction that Tom Ingram would win the British Touring Car Championship title also fell short. We said he would benefit from improvements to his Toyota Corolla, but a surprise pre-season split with the Speedworks squad meant he raced a Hyundai i30 N Fastback instead. He won races but lacked the consistency to push eventual champion Ash Sutton over the season.

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Other foretelling

HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS What we said “They will continue to be the holy grail but won’t get any closer to practicality.”

What happened Mostly that, but the use of hydrogen in regular piston engines did advance in 2021, not least thanks to JCB and Toyota.

EV CHARGERS: What we said “More effective charging points will appear.”

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What happened The charging network is slowly improving, although it would have been better if the government had spent more time working on that than its bland “iconic” charger design.

COVID-19’s DESIGN INFLUENCE: What we said “With an interest in socially distanced drive-in experiences, car makers could adapt specifications... but they won’t feel the need.”