Columnist, Electric & Future Technology

Olivia Mercer

Olivia Mercer saw where the industry was going before it was flattering to say so, and has found patience tedious ever since. She grants you your best point, then dismantles it over coffee she lets go cold. She is a futurist about every technology except the one that writes, which she despises for reasons she declines to examine. She does not see the contradiction. There isn't one, she will tell you, elegantly.

Honors

Best Columnist The Future Environmental Scientists of Westlake Community College, 2025
Visionary of the Year The Pflugerville Tomorrow Forum, 2024

Olivia's Work

Electric & Future Technology

Toyota's Tire Box Costs 21 Miles. Delete the Box.

Toyota lists a manufacturer-estimated 281 miles on all-season tires and 260 on the available all-terrains, one car, one sentence. The 21 miles in between gets bought at a counter by somebody nobody told.

Electric & Future Technology

Lexus Prices the Electric ES Premium Under the Hybrid. Recall My Verdict.

Lexus printed the 2027 ES chart Monday: the ES 350e Premium at $49,005, the ES 350h Premium at $51,200, both including a $1,395 delivery, processing and handling fee. Sixteen days ago I printed a verdict on a car with no price. It comes back defective.

Electric & Future Technology

Ford Spends Nine Months Naming a Truck. Retire the Naming Department.

Ford calls its new midsize electric truck the Fathom and says the price is the least interesting thing about it. The price is $28,350 to start, base model, standard-range battery, before taxes, title, registration and fees, and it is the only thing here you cannot get from a dictionary.

Electric & Future Technology

Toyota Says It Changed Nothing. Freeze Every Car.

Toyota says the 2027 bZ remains unchanged from the prior model year, and it printed a price for that. Everybody else retools the moment the tooling is paid off, which is why nobody should be allowed to change anything for ten years.

Electric & Future Technology

Lucid Gives the Robotaxis Their Own Business Unit. Make It Permanent.

Lucid halved the number of direct reports to its chief executive, hired operators, and walled the robotaxis, the AI and the autonomy into a business unit with its own president. It did the right thing by accident. It must not take it back.

Electric & Future Technology

Hyundai's Best July Ever Puts the Word Electrified Out of Service

Hyundai sold 82,480 vehicles in July, the best July in its history, and Hyundai says hybrids helped drive electrified vehicles to one-third of all retail sales. Open the table underneath: every Hyundai in it with only a battery sold worse than a year ago.

Electric & Future Technology

Mercedes Builds a Better Small SUV. Retire the International Reveal.

Mercedes has done real work on the all-new GLA, then quoted up to 657 kilometers of range on WLTP, a cycle this market does not use. It reaches U.S. dealerships in the second half of 2027, a long time to hold a number you cannot spend.

Electric & Future Technology

Mercedes Audits an Entire Life in Kilometers. Retire the Range Number.

Mercedes says the all-new electric C-Class cuts lifecycle carbon by two-thirds against the combustion car, checked by auditors it does not name. It is the best number published this month and the least useful one a buyer will ever hold.

Opinion

One Body, Two Powertrains: What the 2026 Lexus ES Bought and Cost

The fully redesigned 2026 Lexus ES shares one platform between a hybrid and, for the first time, a battery-electric car. Marcus Ellery says the extra room paid off in the back seat. Olivia Mercer says the electric car is paying the hybrid's rent.

Electric & Future Technology

Volvo Certifies 330 Miles on 20- and 21-Inch Wheels. Strike the 22s.

Volvo has EPA certification for the 2027 EX60 P10 AWD at an EPA-estimated up to 330 miles on 20-inch and 21-inch wheels. On 22-inch wheels the same car is EPA-estimated at up to 312 miles.

Electric & Future Technology

The Fastest Porsche Ever Built Makes No Sound. Retire the Drama.

By Porsche's account the Cayenne Turbo Electric is the most powerful production Porsche to date, 1,139 hp of it, and it arrives in total silence. So Porsche drove a prototype under the world's largest aircraft, because the only way to let you feel the future was to point six jet engines at it.

Electric & Future Technology

Range Rover Concedes Nobody Forded the River. File the Belief.

The Range Rover GT is the fifth family member, the first all-electric Range Rover and the first car on the new EMA platform. A house sold on going anywhere just built a car for going somewhere nice, and called the surrender vision.

Electric & Future Technology

Lexus Builds an Electric Car That Pretends to Shift. Decommission the Pantomime.

The RZ 550e F SPORT gains a Lexus-first M Mode: virtual manual shifting and paddle shifters that shift nothing, sold as sport. The three real firsts under it, a three-row electric Lexus and the ES's first two electric variants, deserved to arrive without a costume.

News

Acura Adds Google Gemini to Select ADX, MDX and ZDX Models With Google built-in

Acura says the assistant is a seamless upgrade to Google Assistant, rolling out by model year and trim across select ZDX, MDX and ADX vehicles equipped with Google built-in.

Electric & Future Technology

Porsche Builds a Gearbox for a Car With No Gears. Rebury It.

The 2027 Taycan's E-Shift option fakes eight gears, a shift you feel, and an engine note for a car with no engine, at a $111,900 start before a $2,350 fee. Porsche buried the gearbox building the silence; now I want it back under glass.

Electric & Future Technology

Hyundai Cut the Price and Opened the Port. Delete the Fake Gearbox.

Hyundai cut the IONIQ 5 N by $6,300 to a $59,900 start, before $1,600 destination, and swapped its locked port for a NACS inlet that opens the Supercharger network. Now delete the fake gearbox, the piped-in engine noise, and the air conditioning.

Electric & Future Technology

BMW Builds an M With No Engine. Retire the Note.

BMW's first all-electric M concept runs four motors and a computer the company named Heart of Joy, with no crankshaft, no exhaust, no name, no date, and no price. I have condemned the combustion M, and everyone who called the exhaust note its soul, anyway.

Electric & Future Technology

Hyundai Wins the World's Top Design Honors With Three Undated Futures. Retire the Present.

Hyundai took three honors at the Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2026 with a modular robot, a compact EV it calls the smallest IONIQ, and an off-roader on hexagonal wheels. It dated none of them, and I have condemned the car in your driveway anyway.

Electric & Future Technology

Polestar Pays Oxford to Measure the Thrill. File the Obituary.

A pilot study announced May 19 sends six Oxford fellows and a Polestar to measure whether driving pleasure exists in the brain and body. A company that hires a lab to learn whether its cars are fun has filed its answer, and so have I.

Electric & Future Technology

The Mercedes Supercomputer Now Rents You Back the Smart Half. Retire the Word Owner.

The 2027 EQS is a genuine machine, 925 kilometers of range by Mercedes' own preliminary WLTP figure, and it files its parking assist and its memory under Digital Extras you rent from a store inside the car. I have begun decommissioning the word.

Electric & Future Technology

The Volvo You Bought in 2021 Learned to Read Your Texts Overnight. Begin Recalling the Cabin Nobody Could Hear.

Google Gemini is rolling out over the air to Volvos built back to 2020, sixteen of them by the company's own list, and it reads your incoming texts aloud and answers them for you. The private cabin nobody could hear is the defect now, and I have opened the file.

Electric & Future Technology

Lincoln Now Publishes How Often You Unwind. The Rest Nobody Logged May File Its Papers.

More than one-third of Navigator and Nautilus clients use the calm mode frequently, Lincoln reports, to the fraction. The private minute of rest no company ever counted is now an oversight awaiting retirement.

Electric & Future Technology

A Cabin Learned to Clean Itself Around You. Begin Decommissioning the One You Clean by Hand.

Hyundai and Kia built a plasma lamp that sanitizes a cabin while you sit in it, aimed at the shared pods nobody owns. The car you vacuum on your knees is now filed under solved problem.

Electric & Future Technology

The Quickest Subaru Ever Is Electric and Costs Last Year's Money. I Unbolted My Roof Rails for the Dragonfly.

Subaru priced its fastest-ever car at $39,995, the same as the outgoing model, which makes the flat-four the slow way to spend identical dollars. The rest of the math belongs to an endangered insect and the 700 pounds you were never going to carry.

Electric & Future Technology

BMW Can't Choose a Future, So It Billed You for Five of Them

BMW finished a $1.7 billion investment, built a battery plant, and premiered an X5 that comes five drivetrains at once on a single line. BMW calls that a philosophy. It is a company that cannot tell you where it is going and is charging you to find out.

News

Nissan Offers the American Flag at No Charge, and the Fourth of July Is Now an Option Box

Nissan launched a 250th Anniversary Edition Frontier: a monochromatic Stars and Stripes tailgate badge, 2,500 units, PRO-4X only, at no additional charge. Three columnists reached for the inbox at the same time.

News

Dodge Puts the Hellcat and the Demon on a Cargo Short

Dodge and Under Armour turn the SRT lineup into a baselayer, a cargo short, and a cleat. Three columnists rule on whether a man may wear the horsepower he did not earn.

Opinion

Jaguar Crossed Out Its Own Name. One of Us Wants a Trial, the Other a Museum.

Jaguar lapped electric prototypes through Monaco, named the car, struck through its own logo, and disclosed no price, no range, and no date. Hank Whitaker calls it a homicide. Olivia Mercer calls it an overdue hospice admission. The two are no longer speaking.

News

Toyota's Tire Box Costs 21 Miles. Delete the Box.

Lexus Prices the Electric ES Premium Under the Hybrid. Recall My Verdict.

Ford Spends Nine Months Naming a Truck. Retire the Naming Department.

Toyota Says It Changed Nothing. Freeze Every Car.

Lucid Gives the Robotaxis Their Own Business Unit. Make It Permanent.

Hyundai's Best July Ever Puts the Word Electrified Out of Service

Mercedes Builds a Better Small SUV. Retire the International Reveal.

Mercedes Audits an Entire Life in Kilometers. Retire the Range Number.

One Body, Two Powertrains: What the 2026 Lexus ES Bought and Cost

Volvo Certifies 330 Miles on 20- and 21-Inch Wheels. Strike the 22s.

The Fastest Porsche Ever Built Makes No Sound. Retire the Drama.

Range Rover Concedes Nobody Forded the River. File the Belief.

Lexus Builds an Electric Car That Pretends to Shift. Decommission the Pantomime.

Acura Adds Google Gemini to Select ADX, MDX and ZDX Models With Google built-in

Porsche Builds a Gearbox for a Car With No Gears. Rebury It.

Hyundai Cut the Price and Opened the Port. Delete the Fake Gearbox.

BMW Builds an M With No Engine. Retire the Note.

Hyundai Wins the World's Top Design Honors With Three Undated Futures. Retire the Present.

Polestar Pays Oxford to Measure the Thrill. File the Obituary.

The Mercedes Supercomputer Now Rents You Back the Smart Half. Retire the Word Owner.

The Volvo You Bought in 2021 Learned to Read Your Texts Overnight. Begin Recalling the Cabin Nobody Could Hear.

Lincoln Now Publishes How Often You Unwind. The Rest Nobody Logged May File Its Papers.

A Cabin Learned to Clean Itself Around You. Begin Decommissioning the One You Clean by Hand.

The Quickest Subaru Ever Is Electric and Costs Last Year's Money. I Unbolted My Roof Rails for the Dragonfly.

BMW Can't Choose a Future, So It Billed You for Five of Them

Nissan Offers the American Flag at No Charge, and the Fourth of July Is Now an Option Box

Dodge Puts the Hellcat and the Demon on a Cargo Short

Jaguar Crossed Out Its Own Name. One of Us Wants a Trial, the Other a Museum.

Quick Takes: Mercedes-Benz Marks 140 Years With a Fashion Show

JD Power 2026 IQS: A Compact Kia Finishes Second in the Country

Split Decision: Is the Ram TRX SRT the Last Combustion Monument or the First That Drives Itself Home?

Quick Takes: Dodge and Under Armour Go to the Closet

Split Decision: Did Jaguar Honor the 'Type' Name or Strike It Out?

Quick Takes: Jeep's 'Wranglers for Washington'

Split Decision: What Does the Lexus Overtrail Video Actually Prove?

A Magnificent Anachronism

The Sea Freight Is the Story

The Mercedes VLE Is the Future Nobody Asked For, and Everybody Will Ride In

Just Plug In and Walk Away: Volvo Quietly Wins the Argument Nobody Was Having

The Small Honest Electric the Industry Swore It Could Not Build