Europe knows its Car of the Year. For the first time in history, it became a Korean car, the Kia EV6 electric car. Among other things, the advanced electric platform E-GMP, which “democratizes” Porsche technology, is responsible for this.
Like the sporty Porsche Taycan Taycan, the EV6 has an on-board network that allows high-speed charging of up to 233 kW. Kia defeated six other cars in the final, five of which were electric cars. Renault Megane E-Tech Electric finished in second place and Kie’s technical relative, Hyundai Ioniq 5, took third place.
For the second time in a row, Škoda failed, its Enyaq iV took fifth place. The only non-electric finalist in the form of the Peugeot 308 finished fourth.
The Czech representative on the jury, the editor-in-chief of Automobil Revue magazine Jiří Duchoň, distributed his points evenly, but he awarded the most to the winning Kie EV6. “Mainly due to 800V charging with an output of over 200 kilowatts, but also for the possibility of serving as a power source for external equipment or great driving characteristics given by specific Sachs shock absorbers and excellent chassis tuning,” he calculated for Aktuálně.cz.
The winner of the survey was announced this year as part of a live broadcast from the Geneva Exhibition Center. The local car show, in which the results are usually announced, did not take place for the third year in a row. However, the head of the Geneva Motor Show, Sandro Mesquita, confirmed that the exhibition will return next year after a break forced by the coronavirus pandemic.
The selection of the European Car of the Year takes place in several rounds. First, the so-called long list will be compiled, in which there were 39 vehicles this year, from which seven finalists were selected. An absolute winner will then emerge from it. Electric cars predominated in the selection at all levels, there were eighteen of them in the long list, six out of seven among the finalists. The only (currently) non-electric car among the finalists was the aforementioned Peugeot 308. However, the model is still available as a plug-in hybrid and a purely electric version is also planned for the future.
“No one knows what will come out of the first round of elections. There is an anonymous election there, each of the jurors will only list seven of their favorites, they will be dashed and a line will be drawn below the seventh. In the second round, each of the jurors must divide their 25 points and for each of the finalists to evaluate their step verbally, “describes Duchoň.
Jury members have the opportunity to evaluate cars during joint test drives and compare their properties. In the case of the finalists, however, a similar comparison was not made this year due to the limitations of the coronavirus epidemic.
The overall ranking can be found here:
1. Kia EV6: 279 points
2. Renault Mégane E-Tech: 265 points
3. Hyundai Ioniq 5: 261 points
4. Peugeot 308: 191 points
5. Škoda Enyaq iV: 185 points
6. Ford Mustang Mach-e: 150 points
7. Cupra Born: 144 points
Last year, the Toyota Yaris won the traditional poll, also thanks to the fact that it offers both an economical and eco-cog-hybrid version and a civilian racer in the form of the GR version. In the gallery you can then see the last ten winners of the traditional journalistic poll.
Car of the year without a Russian track
Representatives of Russia are traditionally among the 61 members of the European Car of the Year jury. There are currently two, Vadim Ovsiankin and Sergei Znajemsky. However, following the military invasion of Ukraine, their jury membership was suspended and their votes did not count. Their names and the Russian flag did not appear during the ceremony.
“Sergei and Vadim are great people and professionals who hate their president from the bottom of their hearts. The suspension of jury membership was proposed by themselves,” explains Jiří Duchoň. It is said that the non-counting of points did not mean any changes in the overall ranking.
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