Having said that, I retired from the materials handling industry and worked extensively with Thrall Car Manufacturing (the largest producer of those enclosed auto transport rail cars). They began enclosing them due to vandals shooting up the autos along the right of way.
Those cars were NOT connected with accordian devices between them as seen here. If these ARE auto transport cars, they are far more expensively built than those made by Thrall. And those evenly spaced perforations in the side walls certainly appear to be on appropriate centers to be cell windows.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?
I’ve seen box cars connected like that in Europe and Japan, I believe it improves aerodynamics. I haven’t paid much attention in the States but if it improves efficiency, I don’t see why they wouldn’t do this.