Top five news articles of 2025

If you are what you read, then the typical Australian is a smart, artificial intelligence-powered Toyota RAV4 with a penchant for road trips and a fascination with speed – unless it comes to SUV sales.

The top-rated news content on CarExpert included multiple speed camera articles – as the technology gets smarter to generate more fines – as well as a morbid fascination with the cars only a handful of new-car buyers park in their driveways.

In addition, these stories came as the Australian automotive landscape received a raft of new auto brands, new models and old battlefronts, with every new car brand looking to catch your attention – and with the CarExpert team looking to filter the propaganda from the promises.

Here are the top five news articles you read the most in 2025.

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1. Highway to the Danger Zone

A summer road trip is a rite of passage for many Australians, but heading off the beaten track – beyond phone reception and away from fuel stops in a continent as vast as ours – can be fraught with danger.

In September, a study presented the Danger Zone Index Score to rank the most dangerous commonly traversed routes in order of their proximity to help should it all go wrong.

Among 100 roads named, the top three most dangerous ‘breakdown hotspots’ – we won’t spoil it for you – are the furthest roads in Australia from fuel, a mechanic, and medical assistance.

“You never know what situation you might be in,” former SAS commando Ryan Wilson told CarExpert.

“When heading into remote or rugged parts of Australia, preparation is everything… You’re in a situation that requires calm, deliberate action.

“Mental preparedness matters – plan your route, check road and weather conditions, and tell someone where you’re going and when you expect to arrive.”

Is Australia’s most dangerous breakdown hotspot part of your journey this summer?

2. You avoided these cars, but not this story on them

We love a winner: a cricketer hitting a six at the Boxing Day Test, a gruelling rally at the Australian Open, or a hard-fought Sydney-to-Hobart finish. But we seem to love a clumsy dropped catch or a smashed racket even more.

Our worst-selling SUVs of 2024 article was, fittingly, the first loser among our most-read news pieces over the past 12 months, a fascination as poignant as our draw to true crime content on Netflix and elsewhere.

Forget tall poppy syndrome: these were the weeds of the new SUV sales charts, those failing to flower as rivals flourished – the also-rans, the “could-have-beens”, the “never was”.

Low sales don’t necessarily mean a bad vehicle, but a look at the list shows SUVs from some of the world’s most established players, including some legendary names.

In 2025, the influx of brands means more choice for Australians, but a smaller slice of the sales pie for each model, as illustrated by the top-selling model being expected to notch up around 40,000 sales.

This compares with around 66,000 for the best-seller two decades ago in 2005, the Holden Commodore, and almost 90,000 when the Ford Falcon went number one just a decade earlier in 1995.

3. New speed cameras see Tasmanian roads paved in gold

New speed cameras in Tasmania seemingly paid for themselves within days after an 80-fold increase in fines for speeding motorists.

Older speed cameras on the Tasman Bridge in the state capital, Hobart, had been switched off after catching 458 speeding motorists between July 2021 and June 2022, an average of 8.8 per week.

The new, more advanced cameras replacing them in March 2025 caught more than 700 speeding motorists in the first week of operation alone.

They are among a new era of technology, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI), rolled out in several states, including New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria.

The Sensys Gatso cameras on the Tasman Bridge, site of the tragic collapse in January 1975, use AI to identify speeding drivers in any lane and can detect multiple speeding vehicles at once.

AI has also been used to detect mobile phone use and seatbelt infringements, stirring controversy in Queensland after motorists were incorrectly sent fines generated by AI technology.

4. Australia’s best-selling SUV has a problem

When you’re famous, you’re under intense scrutiny – even if you’re a humble SUV.

The Toyota RAV4 was wrapped up in a recall of almost 70,000 vehicles across the Toyota brand, also impacting the Corolla Cross, C-HR, and Kluger SUVs, as well as the Yaris, Corolla, and Camry passenger cars.

In the biggest automotive recall of the year, the larger 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster fitted to some vehicles could go blank and stay that way.

The comatose cluster meant drivers were not shown critical information, including vehicle speed, warning lights, and indicator status.

It was the only real blemish for the current RAV4, which will see a new generation arrive in the first half of 2026, including a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) version for the first time, sometime between August and October.

Australia’s best-selling SUV, the RAV4 topped the monthly sales charts in January, February and November 2025, in an ongoing arm wrestle with the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger utes for overall line honours.

5. Artificial intelligence is coming for your driver’s licence

Australia’s road toll continued to climb in 2025 after reaching its highest figure in more than a decade in 2024, despite record numbers of cameras and corresponding revenue – including a tripling of revenue to $464.3 million in Queensland alone.

Trials of new ‘smart enforcement traffic cameras’ commenced in Victoria in September 2025, expanding capabilities beyond the old-fashioned detection of speeding or red-light-running drivers.

A variety of new cameras can detect speed, red-light offences, bus-lane infringements, seatbelt faux pas, and mobile phone use. They also incorporate numberplate recognition and can determine average speed across multiple cameras.

The Victorian Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030 committed to halving road deaths by 2030 and eliminating deaths from the state’s roads by 2050.

The state government’s website says: “Road safety cameras save Victorian lives. They slow drivers down, making Victoria’s roads safer”.

But according to the Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Victoria’s road toll for the year to December 15, 2025, increased from 278 to 280, following more fatalities involving pedestrians and vehicle passengers.

MORE: Privacy concerns raised over ‘unfair’ AI-assisted mobile phone and seatbelt camera fines