2021 carsales Car of the Year starts here

It’s that time of year again. Our judges are already rolling up their sleeves to hand down their verdict for Australia’s premier automotive consumer award, the 2021 carsales Car of the Year, proudly presented by Bingle.

To be eligible for consideration, vehicles must be series-production models officially on sale in Australia prior to December 31 this year, including at least one variant priced below $250,000, and available for testing.

As usual, we only consider new or substantially updated cars released during the preceding 12 months, but ‘new’ can mean a new variant within an existing model range.

An example of this is the Volvo XC40 Recharge Pure Electric, a battery-electric variant of the small SUV that we named carsales Car of the Year in 2018. The XC40 EV will take part in this year’s event, just as its plug-in hybrid counterpart did last year.

Once again, every vehicle must be fitted with autonomous emergency braking (AEB) and a reversing camera as standard.

Following the precedent in 2020, carsales Car of the Year judging for 2021 will again be a virtual process, due to the ongoing restrictions related to COVID-19.

The finalists, two honourable mentions and overall winner will be determined by a comprehensive adjudication process that blends expert research from RedBook with the collective experience of our expert judging team.

RedBook cost of ownership data is a vital part of the carsales Car of the Year, proudly presented by Bingle, process. In addition, our judges will score each vehicle across of variety of attributes including value, safety, technology, design, innovation, dynamics, comfort, practicality, quality and presentation.

The process is carried out in multiple phases, with one stage already complete – the selection of the contenders that are considered worthy of evaluation.

Each phase will be reported by carsales throughout October and November, with the winner of the 2021 carsales Car of the Year, proudly presented by Bingle, to be announced on November 17.

Before that, the field of contenders will be pared back to 10 finalists and two additional wildcard entries – two vehicles that didn’t make the final 10 on the merits of their pricing and specification data alone, but were deemed by the judging panel to be important new models in the market nonetheless.

We’ll name and detail a finalist each day from October 20, before revealing the full list of finalists on November 1.

And between November 3 and 12, a readers’ choice poll will once again provide you with the opportunity to let us know which model you would pick for your Car of the Year.

The People’s Choice will be announced on November 15 – just two days before we name the carsales Car of the Year.

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