Here Are The Official Autopian Automotive Predictions For 2026

There’s a myth – maybe it’s more of a legend – circulating in the automotive world about a magical elixir made from all of a car’s essential fluids: oil, gasoline/diesel, coolant, brake fluid, blinker fluid, headrest juice, and so on. This elixir is said to be able to imbue the quaffer with the ability to see into the future! The future!

The beginning of a new year is a fantastic time to make predictions, of course, so I decided to attempt to concoct such an elixir. The proper ratios of the elixir have been lost to time, and while I was able to summon the ghosts of both Henry Ford and Hans Ledwinka, neither had any useful insight into this. In fact, Henry just called me a bunch of anti-semitic slurs, and Hans just wanted what happened in some old Star Trek episodes, since he died in 1967. They were no help at all.

In the end, I just kept adding gin to the mixture until I could keep it down without vomiting that much, and I think I must have done something right, because right after I wet myself (lavishly, of course) a series of premonitions flooded my mind, visions of the year to come, automotively. Lucky for you, I was able to Sharpie these ideas onto a scrap of drywall so I could remember them when I sobered up!

Here’s what I came up with:

Touchscreen Door Handles

You know how everyone is starting to realize that electronic door handles are an ass-pain, and even sometimes dangerous? Sure you do. We’re all getting sick of them. And, I think eventually the industry will wise up and phase out these stupid overcomplicated things. But before that happens, I think there will be one last, stupid stand of overcomplicated door handles, and that last stupid stand will be really overcomplicated.

And it’ll have screens.

Yes, I predict that the final nail in the coffin of overcomplex electronic door handles will be handles that have a touchscreen with a graphical menu on the outside of the door. You’ll have to navigate to some menu screen with options to open the door, with a separate OK/execute button, and it will be so maddening and inane that, finally, the whole of humankind will say enough and we’ll go back to basic mechanical door handles that just flapjacking work.

L3 Autonomy Will Be Solved By Everyone Agreeing To Just See What Happens

I’ve been saying that Level 3 automated driving – a level where the car is doing all of the driving, until it just can’t, and then the human has to take over, even though they’re not actually required to be supervising in any capacity while the car is driving – is stupid. Deeply stupid.

And yet, the inherent contradictions and confusions of Level 3 don’t seem to be dissuading carmakers from trying to implement it, like Mercedes-Benz, who has a (low speed) and geofenced L3 system available now.

Here’s my prediction: Level 3 will become more prevalent because in 2026 automakers will band together to all agree to “just kind of see what happens” with L3 systems, coupled with new driver end-user agreements full of tiny text that absolve carmakers from any liability when these systems start to cause accidents.

So far, no automaker has given me a good, viable explanation of how they’ll handle the handoff between car and human when it needs to happen, especially in a hurry, and I don’t have any faith they’ll come up with something that works, not really. Instead, I think we’ll see some bullshit like this.

New Subscription Plan: SaaS (Seats as a Service)

You know how everyone hates car feature subscriptions? Sure you do. Nobody likes them, nobody. But carmakers just can’t ignore all of that sweet, sweet cash just sitting there in your car, in features and equipment you thought you already owned. The problem (for automakers, not you) is that too many subscription features are things you could ignore.

Heated seats, better acceleration, navigation, multi-zone climate control … these are all things car owners can, you know, do without. But what about seats themselves!

I predict that 2026 will be the year of subscription seats, or Seats as a Service (SaaS). When you don’t pay your seat subscription, the seat folds itself into an uncomfortable lump that you can just barely sit on, juuussst enough to meet the legal requirements. To have the seat unfurl into its full, comfortable state, you need to pay.

You’re gonna hate it.

Lack of Cheap Cars Will Start a Trend of “Renewal Shops”

You know what sucks? The fact that there are less and less, perhaps even fewer and fewer genuinely cheap new cars for sale. Nissan killed the cheapest car you could get in America, the Versa, and while there are still some under $25,000 options, there’s not that many, and it sure would be nice if there were some options for even less than $25,000, which is still a good chunk of money.

I don’t see automakers stepping up to fill this hole in the market, so I predict a new industry will emerge where companies – backed or partnered with finance companies, so people can take out loans for these cars – will take decent used cars and “re-manufacture” them to update some of the tech and clean, renew, repair, and refresh them so they’re almost like new cars.

I think these cars could sell for between $12,000 to $20,000, depending on the base car and level of refreshing. These are beyond just “certified pre-owned” cars; these will all be fairly extensively re-worked so as to be viable competition to entry-level cars costing $5,000 to $10,000 more.

And it’s not a completely unheard of idea! Czech carmaker Tatra would regularly re-manufacture their 603 models, updating old ones to newer specs and fixing everything that needed fixing.

It’s kind of a grim thought, but I honestly think this could be a viable business if done right.

New Vega. That’s All.

AI Disrupts Driving

New AI will disrupt driving by taking prompts from driver-users and then generating text, pictures, and video of what the trip would have been like, freeing drivers from having to bother going anywhere at all, ever, forever!

Why bother actually doing anything or going anywhere when some AI can just fabricate all the evidence you need? What do you want, anyway, actual, physical, visceral enjoyment, or some really bitchin’ reels for Insta? Why even get out of bed?

So, there you go! Predictions for 2026! I hope I’m wrong about most of these, and, given my track record, I likely will be.