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- "Das ist unser neues Auto."
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Does "neues" have the "es" ending because (a) it is strong inflection because there is no article for "Auto," (b), this is in the nominative case because of the verb "ist," and (c) "Auto" is neuter (das Auto)? That is my suspicion.
Not as a possessive determiner (before a noun).
For some reason, those inflect like the indefinite article ein and have no ending at all for masculine nominative, neuter nominative, and neuter accusative.
(As a possessive pronoun, replacing a noun, those endings would be correct. Dein Pferd is groß und unser(e)s ist klein; dein Hund ist schnell und unserer ist langsam. "Your horse is big and ours is small; your dog is fast and ours is slow." Even English has this distinction: no ending in possessive determiners, e.g. "our"; ending in possessive pronouns, e.g. "ours".)
Because attributive adjetives (roughly: ones before a noun) need an ending on them. You can't just put the base form neu before a noun like that.
Which ending depends on the gender, number, and case of the noun, as well as on whether you have a determiner in front of it and if so, what kind.
See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_adjectives for more information.
Here, you have neuter nominative singular, mixed inflection after possessive unser, and thus you need the ending -es on neues.