Six of the seven Car of the Year finalists are EVs

The 2026 Car of the Year award will be announced on January 9. Before that, we got the full list of finalists today, and out of the seven on the list, six are EVs or have an EV version.

The cars in question are the Citroen C5 Aircross, the Fiat Grande Panda, the Mercedes CLA, the Skoda Elroq, the Kia EV4, and the Renault 4. The sole non-EV on the list is the Dacia Bigster.

These seven cars were picked from 35 models by 60 jury members from 23 European countries. In September, the candidates were tested in Denmark.

From now on, the jury will thoroughly test them some more, after which the finalists will undergo a joint test in Spain, before the final vote is cast. For the final decision, each juror will award 25 points, with a maximum of 10 points per car. Each juror must vote for at least five of the seven finalists, including a winning model.

The previous winner was the Renault 5, which managed to win against the Alfa Romeo Junior, Citroen C3, Cupra Terramar, Dacia Duster, Hyundai Inster, and Kia EV3.

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