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The Volkswagen ID.4 won the 2021 World Car of the Year award.
Volkswagen
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Volkswagen says the ID.4 is just as important to the future of the business as the Beetle was to its past.
Jonathan Gitlin
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I have seldom had as much trouble photographing a new car on an auto day press day as I have tried to get a good chance on the Honda E. It has always been tampered with.
Jonathan Gitlin
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Which is not too surprising, given how cool this thing looks.
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The Defender is a modern twist on a classic from the 20th century.
Jonathan Gitlin
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The 2021 Land Rover Defender.
Land Rover
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In addition to the defenders of passengers, Land Rover offered a few more utilities at the stall in Frankfurt in 2019.
Jonathan Gitlin
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If anything, the inside is even better.
Jonathan Gitlin
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Torx screws are plentiful!
Jonathan Gitlin
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Mazda’s first battery EV is this little crossover, the MX-30.
Mazda
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Like the BMW i3, the MX-30 has suicide doors.
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The Polestar 2 uses angular design language.
Polestar
The real success of Volkswagen’s transition from electric vehicles (EVs) to diesel holes is how much the company can sell each year. But on Tuesday, VW’s work might have gotten a little easier. This is because the new ID.4 crossover has just won the World Car of the Year award and beat two other finalists, the adorable Honda E and the new Toyota Yaris. Fear not, E-fans: the small electric hatchback has won the World Urban Car category. Previous years’ winners included the Kia Telluride and the Jaguar I-Pace.
I was expecting the Honda E to win the World Car Design of the Year; as one of the 93 judges around the world, I gave it high marks because just look at it. But more of my fellow jurors chose the chunky Land Rover Defender for the honor, and in the process, the Land Rover also beat the Mazda MX-30.
The World Luxury Car award was given to the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class, perhaps no surprise as the other two finalists are the Defender and the Polestar 2. The Polestar is an excellent EV with very handy technology, but it is not ‘bombastic Benz.
Porsche’s new 911 Turbo took first place in the World Performance Car category. To be honest, this is a little painful. In a normal year I would have managed most or all of the finalists in all the categories, but COVID cancellations meant that only a few seats had to be given time. Juries may only score vehicles they have driven, so Ars had no input to give the performance award, which also includes the Audi RS Q8 and the Toyota GR Yaris. The Toyota is a special approval for a race version that never raced. It has a truncated pickup compared to the normal Yaris, and just about everyone who drove it fell in love. Unfortunately, there are no plans to bring it to the US.
The same goes for all three finalists for World Urban Car, which also included the Honda Jazz (or Fit) and the normal Yaris, along with the aforementioned Honda E. The E victory here was to be expected; the environment is one of the features on which each car is rated, which means that an EV drive is beneficial, even if it is equal.
For 2022 this will not be the case – at least for a newly introduced category for the World Electric Vehicle of the Year. With so many new EVs coming to showrooms next year, it’s definitely a hotly contested prize.
List image by Volkswagen