Concept cars are famously easy to make for anyone with access to a computer, or even just some clay, or even just an imagination, which is why car startups are plentiful but with a failure rate approaching 100 percent. For established automakers, concepts are a more serious enterprise, frequently previewing the future of the brand or specific models, while allowing company designers to have some fun. This year, we saw new concepts from virtually all of them, from Audi to Mercedes to Toyota and beyond. One big theme was EVs, as it has been for the past several years, because while customer demand — and regulatory insistence — for EVs is currently ebbing, the long-term story remains clear. EVs will be a big part of the future of transportation and, indeed, currently are, even if that future also now seems to include a heavy mix of the old, too. Or mild hybrids. Or extended-range EVs. Or all of the..
