The results of the European competition Car of the Year 2022 (Car of the Year 2022) were summed up in the format of an online ceremony. Recall that this year the initial list of nominees included 39 carsfrom which the jury selected seven finalists. And for the first time in history, a Korean car became the winner – it is an electric cross-hatchback. Kia EV6: He earned 279 points. The EV6 model debuted in March last year and for Kia became the first-born on the Hyundai Group’s E-GMP electric platform. “Six” is already sold in South Korea, most of Europe, North America, Australia and other regions. For example, in Germany Kia EV6 costs from 45 thousand euros.
Renault Megane E-Tech
This time there are only electric cars in the top three of the competition: hatchback took silver Renault Megane E-Tech (265 points), and bronze – Hyundai Ioniq 5 (261 points). Next in the final ranking are Peugeot 308 (191 points), Skoda Enyaq iV (185 points), Ford Mustang Mach-E (150 points) and Cupra Born (144 points). In this company, only the Peugeot 308 has an internal combustion engine.
Previously, Kia vehicles have made it to the Car of the Year final three times (in 2008, 2018 and 2019), but the third place of the Kia Ceed hatchback in 2019 has so far been the biggest achievement of the Korean auto industry in this European competition. And electric cars have already taken COTY gold twice: in 2011, the winner was the Nissan Leaf, and in 2019, the Jaguar I-Pace. In addition, the Peugeot 208 hatchback won in 2020, which has an electric version from the very beginning.
Hyundai Ioniq 5
According to the current rules of the competition, only new or seriously updated cars that go on sale within 12 months before the date of the announcement of the winner are eligible for the title of “Car of the Year”. When voting, each member of the jury disposes of 25 points: any car can receive no more than ten points, and at least five models must be evaluated.
Now the jury consists of 61 automotive journalists from 23 European countries. However, this year Russia did not participate in the voting for the first time in 28 years. Our country in the Car of the Year competition is still represented by Sergey Znaemsky (Autoreview) and Vadim Ovsyankin (Vedomosti, Avtopanorama TV), but this time the jury decided not to take into account their votes due to Russia’s military operations on the territory of Ukraine. Nevertheless, Sergey Znaemsky managed to get acquainted with the cars-nominees and will soon tell about them in detail.