The 2025 Chicago Auto Show is the 117th in the annual series and takes place from Feb. 8-17, 2025 at McCormick Place. The Independent had the opportunity to interview Andrew Michalski, a 36-year-old Subaru enthusiast and podcast host for IAG (Integrity Auto Group) Performance Thursday Thing!, during the pre-show’s exclusive press gathering on the days leading up to the auto show.
Auto shows have been a place where car enthusiasts could get a glimpse into the future––where sleek, futuristic concept cars hint at the possibilities of science and engineering. The only prototypical concept car at this year’s auto show was the all-electric Chrysler Halcyon, which featured DeLorean-style doors that open up like wings. For reference, this is the type of vehicle doors featured in the sci-fi trilogy Back to the Future.
Michalski has been attending auto shows for 10 years as a part of the media and has noticed some trends with his experience. “In general, auto shows have become less popular over the years,” Michalski said. “But I think nowadays people go to these auto shows because they want to experience the cars, they want to get in them, they want to go for test drives, and they want to see if they can actually like it and buy it.”
Two test-ride tracks existed at the auto show as adventure courses. A licensed and trained individual drove the vehicle and controlled it on rough and uneven terrain and up and down hills to evoke feelings of mountaineering. Visitors are able to enjoy and feel the terrain from either the front passenger seat or the back seats. Two test-track obstacle courses included the Ford Bronco and Jeep courses. Several types of Jeep were used on the Jeep course, and some of them handled the rough terrain better than others. The most notable Jeep model on the test track was Rubicon.
One vehicle that gives off the surreal aesthetic of a concept car but actually made it into production is the Tesla CyberTruck. However, “there’s another very good example of a concept car that made it almost straight into production,” Michalski said. “I think it was the Nissan Cube. If you remember that boxy little—I don’t know if I’d call it an SUV—it’s a boxy little car: Nissan Cube, that was shown back in the 2000s.” The Nissan Cube made it from concept to production with little to no changes made to it.
The car was intended for one demographic by the marketers, but a different demographic fell for it due to perceived accessibility. “It was advertised to young people, and that’s not the people who bought it,” Michalski said. “It was older folks who wanted a car that was bigger than a sedan but smaller than a big old SUV.”
SUVs and pickup trucks have a higher center of gravity, which leads to drivers and passengers having to climb up or make a giant step to get seated. Sedans, however, are so low to the ground that they must bend down and almost crawl into the vehicle. “I remember hearing somewhere that the reason older people liked [the Nissan Cube] is because they didn’t climb up into the car like an SUV,” Michalski said. “And they didn’t sit down into it like a sedan.”
“Lately concept cars from auto manufacturers have been talking about the future of mobility,” Michalski said. “So I’ve seen concept cars without steering wheels or they have very little in the way of dashboards or trunk space or any kind of space for your accessories. The wildest concepts that I’ve seen are just a box; it’s either sleek or just a square.”
The expectation of driving a car is that the car is more than just a vehicle that gets drivers and passengers from place to place. According to an article about autonomous automotive technology in The Week titled “The boredom of ‘driving’ a self-driving car”, enjoying the power, prestige, elegance, luxury, fun, musical experiences, speed, smoothness and control of a machine and the climate are all characteristics that people commonly associate with the act of driving and the freedom of the open road.
However, there are vehicles without any of these features. “The robo taxi [is] a recent example of this, where the whole thing that’s being advertised is you get moved from point A to point B, and you don’t have to drive, and that to me is just very boring,” Michalski said. “I think a lot of people feel that way too. It’s not a car; it’s just an object that teleports you.”
The vast majority of vehicles at this year’s auto show were from nearly all manufacturers that sell to U.S. consumers and are marked with 2025 sticker prices to be released later this year. “So, Subaru for example brings one of every model that they sell right now including the Subaru Legacy which is about to be discontinued,” Michalski said. “So that car sitting in their show is probably the last time I’m going to see one of those ‘new’ because it’s going away, right away in 2024 even.”
Michalski was hoping to see more concept cars at this year’s auto show that are destined for the future. “I was actually hoping to see the Honda Prelude concept, [but] they didn’t bring that car, so that’s a shame,” Michalski said. The Honda Prelude sports car is set to release in 2026, according to Hearst Autos’ Car and Driver website.
“I noticed that Toyota brought more real cars that are actually for sale versus one-off build[s] just to show off what the car could do or concept cars,” Michalski said. “I only saw one that was a one-off build.” Michalski segued into the luxury brand Lexus, made by Toyota Motor Corporation, by comparing it to a car dealership within the auto show. “For example, Lexus where that might as well be a dealer showroom because it’s not telling me anything else; it’s not giving me any kind of impression of the brand,” Michalski said. “It’s just: here’s the car, [and] you look at it.”
“Subaru, on the other hand, it’s more of a representation of how the auto show used to be, which is an expression of what the brand wants to be as its advertising identity,” Michalski said. Brand identity is important to Michalski rather than just seeing a car and deciding to purchase it or not. It resonates with the person who may or may not buy it. It gives feelings of warmth and nostalgia and creates memories with parents, progeny, lovers or pets.
Some cars resonate more with city dwellers while other cars resonate more with adventurous individuals. “So, Subaru is very outdoors-oriented; they’ve got pets there that you can adopt; they show off how their cars can have accessories on them such as a bike rack on the roof or a tent on the roof,” Michalski said. “And it’s a complete advertising experience too: if you buy this car, [then] this is what you can expect [and] this is what kind of person you want to buy this car.”
Michalski talked about the planning that takes place in car fabrication and the differences between gas engines and electric motors. “Typically, for a gas engine car, it’s easy to predict how much it’s going to cost to manufacture two to four years in advance,” Michalski said. “However, for electric cars, the cost of batteries specifically has been coming down so drastically over the last two to ten years that it’s very hard to predict how much a car is going to cost to build in the future.”
Michalski made a point that NEIU business, marketing, supply chain management and computer science students should be interested in the auto show. “The way these [EV] manufacturers are running their business is very different because the cars themselves are very different from gas engines,” Michalski said. “Legacy automakers have a supply chain that’s established, and it involves many companies that are building all these items from casting of engine blocks to the engine control modules, so there’s some amount of software programming, but it’s mostly manufacturing.”
“Meanwhile, these electric vehicle companies view themselves as a software company first that just happens to make cars, so they tend to move more quickly; they have less bloat [and] less supply chain to deal with,” Michalski said. “They can move quicker and that shows; so for example, Rivian. Rivian just secured a huge deal with Volkswagen to sell them their electric vehicle control modules.” An EV control module “is basically the brains behind controlling the batteries [which] control the electric motors, and the software that goes with it.”
In retrospect, “Volkswagen has been around forever, and it’s an established manufacturing presence [and] it’s one of the biggest automakers on the planet, and they can’t figure out how to build an electric vehicle,” Michalski said. “Meanwhile this startup out of Silicon Valley—or wherever they’re from––figured it out just by taking a silicon software development approach to it.”
Michalski wanted to leave NEIU students with a conundrum to ponder that he heard years ago: “Is it easier to turn a legacy automaker into a software company or a software company into an automaker?” “The time will tell, but it really helps for young people to go to these auto shows, so they can see how the world is now, and where the world is going.” Furthermore, “it might dictate where they should put their interests or where they should apply for work,” Michalski concluded.
