The end of the year is always a season of reckoning for the automotive industry.
Progress in electrification, roadmaps for software-defined vehicles, and bold technological declarations for the year ahead flood the conversation. Yet as one year closes, there is also value in pausing to reflect on something more fundamental—not where cars are going, but why we began riding together in the first place. That is why, for a moment, we set technology aside and revisit a single Chevrolet commercial. Let's watch Chevrolet commercial together!

By Sang Min Han _ han@autoelectronics.co.kr
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How We Define the Automobile
Christmas commercials are inherently risky. Snow, music, family, memories—misstep even slightly, and emotion turns forced or clichéd, dissolving like cotton candy the moment it appears. And yet, brands like Chevrolet return to this dangerous genre year after year.
As 2025 draws to a close, Chevrolet’s Memory Lane proves that this repetition is not habit, but attitude. Once again, it quietly brings moisture to the eyes.
There are no SDV roadmaps here. No declarations about electrification. What remains is simply the time a family has spent together inside one vehicle. Chevrolet does not ask what you drove. It shows how you lived together along the way.


A Car as Both Background and Protagonist of Time
The commercial opens with an elderly couple leaving their home. From an old closet, they gather odds and ends—starting with a cookie tin, once their daughter’s childhood treasure box. Even after everything is packed, the wife pauses and asks, “The casserole dish?”—the oven-safe staple always brought to family gatherings at Christmas.
These objects reappear throughout the film, signaling that this is not a story about events, but about family life and accumulated memory—memory lane itself.
The car carrying them is a Chevrolet Suburban. Spacious, aging, and always expected to carry just a little more. Yet the ad never explains the vehicle. It doesn’t need to.
Once the car begins to move, time no longer flows in a straight line. A Christmas tree farm, an ice hockey rink, a small roadside stop, a dirt road, an abandoned barn—none are destinations. They are all places passed through. The car is not a tool that transports people somewhere, but a space that summons memories. Like the signposts in the film, it moves freely between present, past, and deeper past.


Memories Are Born in Detours, Not Decisions
At the heart of the commercial are moments that were never planned.
A barn visited because the kids insisted. A store passed by. A symbolic sign. Torn seat upholstery and ice skates tossed into the back seat.
The torn seat is never repaired. It simply remains—a trace. The ad understands something essential: the most important memories in life are rarely intentional.
The barn scene is especially decisive. The children run inside, and when they return, they are already grown. A transformation that spans years is conveyed in a single cut. For parents, time fragments. For children, it simply passes.







Empty Seats, and the Dog Who Is Gone
As the film approaches its ending, it becomes more restrained.
The wife glances back from her seat. The empty spaces remain. The children are gone, but their absence has weight.
At the house, they are greeted by their youngest son, his child, and a new dog, Waylon. The old dog, Willie—who once leapt into the car with the children—no longer appears. Death is never spoken, but the silence acknowledges a presence that cannot be replaced.
This restraint feels far more honest than exaggerated tears.


The Weight of “It Wasn’t Easy”
One of the most powerful exchanges comes quietly:
“It wasn’t easy.”
“Would you want it to be?”
“No. I just wish it had stayed exactly as it was.”

This is the language of adults who have accepted their lives. Chevrolet does not promise to make life easier. It promises to have been there while it happened.
The automobile remains a treasure box for shared time—and a casserole dish that carries the family table.
The commercial closes on a reunited Christmas with the line:
“The great journey is the one we take together.”
The Chevrolet logo appears last, like a signature beneath the story.


What Technology Chose Not to Say
Memory Lane wears the shape of a car commercial, but at its core it is a question about what a car truly is—not merely a means of transport, but a space that carries time itself.
By revisiting this familiar role, Chevrolet seeks quiet agreement. As with any meaningful journey, greatness does not reside at the destination. It exists in the time spent together along the way.
The treasure box and the casserole serve the same purpose.
One holds childhood.
The other, the family table.

AEM(오토모티브일렉트로닉스매거진)