Michael Pickering
Michael Pickering is Content Director at WhichCar, overseeing and contributing automotive coverage across the brand. He focuses on news and analysis around new vehicles, technology and market trends, with particular depth on electric and hybrid models, performance cars and the Australian market. His reporting combines clear specifications, pricing detail and launch timing with wider storylines about how brands, regulations and engineering advances are reshaping motoring. His long background in magazine editing and digital news gives his work a polished, concise tone that treats car news as part of a broader consumer and industry landscape rather than isolated product announcements.
Electric, hybrid and performance models
Pickering tracks the shift to electrification through coverage of battery-electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid performance vehicles.
He reports on new performance-focused electrified models, including Alpine’s forthcoming “first true EV sports car”, positioning them as part of a fast-changing sports car segment rather than niche experiments. His news on Porsche’s all-electric Cayenne prototype highlights SUV performance benchmarks, explaining its hill-climb record alongside details of powertrain, development and what it signals for future production models.
He gives similar treatment to MG’s IM luxury models headed for Australia, outlining drivetrain choices, positioning and brand strategy as the marque pushes into higher-end electric territory.
Hybrid and plug-in hybrid launches receive close attention, particularly where they intersect with utility and mainstream segments. His coverage of JAC’s plug-in hybrid dual-cab ute at the Melbourne Motor Show sets out powertrain architecture, electric range and towing capability, framed against Australian buyer expectations for work and lifestyle utes. In reporting on Nissan’s hybrid technology strategy, he uses the brand’s e‑Power systems to explore how the company is trying to solve commercial and regulatory challenges, not just improve efficiency on paper.
Performance-oriented updates such as Mercedes-AMG’s Edition R and R+ models sit in the same continuum, with Pickering tying chassis and output changes to how brands defend enthusiast appeal in an era of tightening emissions and electrification.
Conventional performance hatches and SUVs still feature, but are often discussed alongside technology and market context rather than in isolation. His Toyota GR Corolla upgrade coverage, for example, details power and handling changes while noting timing and positioning within the broader hot-hatch field. Diesel additions like the Mercedes-Benz G 450 d are explained in terms of pricing, local availability and the model’s role within the G-Class range, showing how legacy powertrains coexist with EV and hybrid pushes. Across these pieces, the through-line is an interest in how performance, practicality and new drivetrains intersect in real-world buying decisions.
Market data, industry trends and events
Beyond individual launches, Pickering covers sales data and industry events that shape the Australian car market.
His reporting on VFACTS monthly results breaks down headline volumes, the rise of Chinese brands and shifts between segments, treating the numbers as a lens on consumer confidence and competitive dynamics rather than a simple scoreboard. He regularly connects these figures to model pipelines and brand strategies seen elsewhere in his coverage, so readers can link sales outcomes to the flow of new EVs, hybrids and performance models.
Major industry events also feature prominently in his work.
His Ferrari Le Mans hat-trick piece covers the 24 Hours of Le Mans as both a sporting achievement and a brand story, placing the #83 Ferrari 499P’s win within the marque’s broader motorsport legacy and privateer history. In writing about Wheels Car of the Year’s return, he treats the award as a benchmark for innovation and relevance, outlining how the program is structured and what it means for manufacturers seeking recognition in an overcrowded market.
These stories show an interest in how prestige, competition and structured evaluation influence brand positioning and consumer perception.
Pickering also reports on technology and engineering developments that affect the cost and quality of driving. His coverage of new EV range testing by the Australian Automobile Association explains gaps between laboratory and real-world results, detailing the methodology and implications for both regulators and carmakers. In a piece on Monash engineers’ pothole-mapping technology, he links an apparently niche research project to everyday road quality, maintenance budgets and potential future applications for connected vehicles. Together, these articles underline a tendency to connect technical initiatives and policy debates back to tangible outcomes for the motoring environment.
Editorial depth and cross-category experience
Pickering brings more than three decades of magazine editing experience to his automotive coverage, including leadership of multiple national titles. He spent 18 years with a major magazine publisher, where he led several national magazines and edited the luxury title Men’s Style for eight years, establishing a track record in premium consumer media.
He has worked full-time as a news editor at Daily Mail Australia, adding fast-paced digital news skills to his background in print. For the past several years he has edited Chrono, a luxury watches title, which reinforces his familiarity with high-end brands and technical products.
This cross-category experience shows up in how he frames car stories. Luxury and performance pieces often read like refined consumer features, balancing brand heritage and aspirational positioning with clear technical and pricing detail. More utilitarian stories, such as infrastructure or sales data, retain a concise, news-driven structure but still situate facts within wider lifestyle and economic trends.
Across his role as Content Director and contributor, Pickering’s distinguishing trait is the ability to treat automotive news as part of a broader, premium-leaning consumer and industry narrative while keeping the information direct and accessible.
4 more automobile journalists.
Aditya Nadkarni
Aditya Nadkarni turns new model launches and first drive reviews into clear, buyer-facing information, with a strong focus on detail and incremental updates. He is principal correspondent at CarWale, where he covers passenger vehicles with an emphasis on launch news, facelifts and road-test impressions for mainstream and premium cars. His core news work tracks new introductions and lifecycle updates, explaining what changes, when the car goes on sale, and how each variant is configured. He writes “variants explained” pieces and structured first drive reviews that link driving impressions to a model’s place in the market and its recent update or launch. His reporting is factual, methodical and model-specific, avoiding broad commentary and treating even minor tweaks and new features as news. His bylines also appear at Mobility Outlook and CarTrade, with the same detail-first style.
Alexis Hooi
Alexis Hooi reports on how China’s partnerships in electric vehicles, green technology, tourism and agriculture reshape markets and communities, with a focus on Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific. He writes for China Daily, drawing on experience as a national news page editor, columnist and long-form reporter, and earlier work in other media and organizations. His beat covers Chinese EVs in Australia, green transition projects, innovation hubs, wine, geothermal energy and agricultural cooperation, treating each sector as a lens on China–Oceania economic ties and sustainable growth. He follows concrete outcomes like shifts in car choices, visitor numbers, exports and investment, and reports through project-focused stories and personality-driven features. He also covers culture and identity, diaspora roots, tourism flows, animal attractions and commentary on perception and language, grounding China–Australia relations in everyday experiences.
Antonina Joson
Antonina Joson covers how Southeast Asia’s car markets and fleet decisions respond to new technologies, environmental pressures, and policy shifts. She writes for AfMA, focusing on the automobile sector and its implications for fleets and mobility services, and works as a communications officer with a background in writing, digital marketing, and content creation. Her reporting tracks month‑to‑month changes in car sales in Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore, linking sales data, segment performance, and national policy to corporate strategy. She reports on electric vehicles as strategic assets tied to air quality, energy policy, and industrial ambitions, and follows regional moves such as XPENG’s entry into Indonesia and calls for Toyota to shift production. She also covers safety campaigns, mobility platforms, online marketplaces, book recommendations for fleet professionals, and contributes to FleetDrive advertising and content planning, bringing a commercial, cross‑industry perspective to fleet‑focused coverage.
Aranya Mondal
Aranya Mondal is a business and technical writer who edits and writes analytical coverage of the global aluminium industry for AL Circle, with a through-line of connecting trade patterns and supply risks to aluminium competitiveness. She focuses on aluminium trade flows, bauxite diplomacy, tariffs, scrap imports and strategic materials adjacent to aluminium such as gallium. Her beat spans scrap, recycling and the shift from linear to circular aluminium markets, alumina and aluminium production trends, regional vulnerabilities and project developments, as well as automotive and mobility uses of aluminium including product launches like the Anytec A28-T boat. She works mainly on long-form explainers and recurring formats such as weekly sustainability recaps, using clear language, trade data and value-chain context to unpack production, policy and energy trends for an industry audience.