NZ Guild announces finalists for Car of the Year

The New Zealand Motoring Writers’ Guild has announced its finalists for the Car of the Year 2024 with 11 cars from 10 brands up for the top award.

The selection embraces variety, spanning small cars, luxury cars, SUVs, fully electric, hybrid, and pure-petrol choices, and price points from under $30K to six figures. 

Five fully battery-dedicated models feature, and another four fully embrace hybrid technology. The remaining two have both hybrid and pure petrol offerings within the range.

This shows that, despite reduced interest in electric vehicles on the sales charts over the past 12 months, the Car of the Year award’s administrator, the New Zealand Motoring Writers’ Guild, sees battery-involved mobility becoming ubiquitous in passenger cars.

“Whether it’s the fully electric experience, plug-ins, or self-contained hybrid systems so subtle that some drivers may not even know they are operating, we drive in an increasingly electric world,” says NZ Motoring Writers Guild president Robert Barry. 

“That is being decided for us on a global scale.”  

The finalist in alphabetical order are: Honda CR-V, Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia EV9, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, MG 3, Polestar 4, Subaru Solterra / Toyota bZ4X, Suzuki Swift, Toyota C-HR, and Volvo EX30,

The latest Honda CRV and MG3 are in pure petrol and hybrid versions. The new Hyundai Santa Fe, the latest Toyota C-HR, the fourth-generation Suzuki Swift, and the 2024 iteration of the Mercedes E-Class are all fully hybrid models, the latter two with relatively gentle mild hybrid assist.

The Kia EV9, Polestar 4, Subaru Solterra/Toyota bZ4X and Volvo EX30 are all pure electric machines.

Particular to the 2024 finalists list is the single listing for the Toyota bZ4X and Subaru Solterra.

“The car was a conjoined effort by these brands, each with its product line, which we find to be common for all but minor specification and styling amendments, so therefore, in our eyes, the two stand as one,” said Barry.   

As usual, this latest crop of finalists has been selected from a more comprehensive list of all-new models launched in New Zealand in the past 12 months.

Guild members, including AutoMuse’s Liz Dobson, will continue evaluating the finalists into early 2025. In February 2025, the winner will be announced live on TVNZ One’s Seven Sharp programme.