In the wrong direction
The “Car of the Year” award celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. The award is probably still the most important in the automotive industry, something like the “Oscar” – and I have always been proud to have been a member of the jury for 15 years. And I have always taken my job very seriously, writing long lists, taking a closer look at a candidate if I was unsure; I have driven thousands of kilometres with some of the vehicles. After all, “Car of the Year” is indeed a possible or even important basis for decision-making for potential female car buyers; after all, a not insignificant group of trade journalists made a clear choice (even if it was not always a happy one).
“If we want everything to stay the way it is, everything must change,” wrote Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa in his famous novel “Il Gattopardo”. Well, the organisation of “Car of the Year” has completely missed exactly these changes in the past 10 years. A group of mostly old, white men flies halfway around the world to be wined and dined in a fine hotel and to drive a few more kilometres in a new automobile. That was the business model for a little while, and I can’t really question it, I’ve been doing it myself for more than three decades. But times are changing, not only since Corona, not only because Greta has become an important voice. For some years now, it no longer seems appropriate to fly to America for the static presentation of an electric car, then to attend the first test drives in Namibia, and then to attend the official presentation in Dubai. This is nonsense, it has to stop. A group of almost 60 not insignificant journalists from all over Europe, representing practically all relevant car publications, would have been well within their rights to influence this. Yes, I did not push hard enough for that either; but I decided that for myself.
This year’s election for “Car of the Year” (see: here) was, to put it kindly, a disaster – and shows well that the structures and above all the rules of COTY are no longer up to date. The electrification of the car market has completely changed the rules of the game within a very short time. There are fewer and fewer real novelties, a single e-platform is used consistently by large groups – the VW ID.Buzz, for example, is exactly the same vehicle as the VW ID.3, which came a distant fourth in 2021, while the Skoda Enyaq, which is also identical in construction, only made it to third last place last year. The Nissan Ariya is also a Renault Megane, the winning Jeep Avenger a Peugeot 208 (2020…) and an Opel Corsa and more. The only real novelty, Toyota bZ4X/Subaru Solterra, came last – probably because a Norwegian juror had published a very questionable article on the Toyota’s loading behaviour the day before the vote. That’s another problem: competence in e-mobility is rather poorly represented within the COTY jury.
About ten years ago, I had made the first attempt within the organisation to better establish “Car of the Year” on social media and with a professional website. Unfortunately, this has never happened to any reasonable extent – and for some years now the result has been that the award is losing more and more importance and, above all, attention. So much so that certain manufacturers refuse to make vehicles available to the jurors, for example Mercedes-Benz (well, there are other problems). Such problems were never made public, they always tried the friendly way – with the result that many a company no longer takes the election seriously. At the same time, it was missed to involve the new players, such as the Chinese manufacturers, early or at least in time. This is not only a pity, but a tragedy: politics has no place in such a committee, it must be solely about the products. And there are exciting things coming out of China at the moment. But they are excluded by the outdated COTY rules.
There are now to be changes within the organisation of “Car of the Year”. Exactly what these changes are to look like is beyond my knowledge. But on the one hand this is not relevant here, these are internal matters, but on the other hand it completely contradicts my understanding of democratically made decisions. I have therefore tendered my resignation with immediate effect.
Something else on my own behalf: This text has not been produced by artificial intelligence. There are more of our own stories in our Archive.
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