The election of the Car of the Year will have reserved its share of suspense. When revealing the list of finalists, we discovered that only one of them might run on anything other than electricity. The Peugeot 308 will not have finally won the bet, which therefore returned to the Kia EV6. For Stéphane Lémeret, the only French-speaking Belgian journalist among the 59 members of the jury, this is a real surprise.
“From my point of view as a juror, this is a big surprise for three reasons”, comments the editorial director of Auto Trends magazine. “For me, the Peugeot 308 was the logical favourite, mathematically speaking. As the only “non-100% electric” out of the 7 finalists, it should have scored many “average” points in all countries, even if it seemed obvious to me that it was going to be fairly little cited in number 1. But countries that are very advanced in terms of electrification, such as the Netherlands, Norway or Switzerland, only awarded it very few points, which partly explains its disappointing 4th place, right in the middle of the pack”.
But even among the all-electrics, the Kia was not winning, especially once morest the Ioniq 5, its technical clone from Hyundai, its parent company. “The presence of the Hyundai Ioniq 5, first cousin of the EV6, should have cost the latter dearly. Firstly because one and the other might have “killed each other” by sharing the votes in favor of their technology. But also because the Ioniq 5 seemed to me more innovative and modern in its concept than the Kia. But the French and the Spaniards, numerous and therefore very influential mathematically speaking, apparently largely preferred the Kia to the Hyundai.
Fault corrected?
On the Belgian side, the EV6 seems to have been much less convincing: Joost Bolle, Dutch-speaking juror, and Stéphane Lémeret only awarded it a small point each. The latter explains:During the first tests of the Kia, the latter had a huge suspension problem, clearly too hard and therefore very uncomfortable. I personally didn’t have the opportunity to try it once more followingwards but it seems that the problem has been solved given the comments of some journalists who had the opportunity. Apparently, the latter were more numerous than those who remained on their first (very bad) impression!”. But a good player, he concludes by recognizing other qualities in the winner: “If its suspension has indeed been revised following our first comments, so much the better: the opinion of journalists who have tested the first versions has been listened to! And this Kia deserves to be the first Korean car to win this title so envied. It displays an original look, charging technology that was until now reserved for much more expensive cars (Porsche Taycan, etc.) and a welcoming interior”.
Ranking :
Kia EV6 : 279 points
Renault Megane E-Tech Electric : 265 points
Hyundai Ioniq 5 : 261 points
Peugeot 308 : 191 points
Skoda Enyaq iV : 185 points
Ford Mustang Mach-e : 150 points
Cupra Born : 144 points
