How we decided the 2021 carsales Car of the Year

There was never any doubt that the editorial team at carsales would go ahead with our flagship Car of the Year award in 2021, once again proudly presented by Bingle.

But the judging process to underpin that announcement wasn’t locked in until the 11th hour. Would it be a virtual process like the 2020 award? Or would it be a traditional, hands-on program of back-to-back field testing and data-crunching?

The third wave of COVID-19 struck mid-year, ensuring most of our judges would be in lockdown for an extended period and/or prevented from crossing borders at exactly the time we planned our traditional group test at Winton Raceway in central Victoria.

So, we had committed to another virtual judging process, but as restrictions lifted were able to conduct some on-location testing and, with our deadline looming, the majority of judges drove the majority of finalists back-to-back on the same roads on the same day.

But first of all, it was necessary to work out which cars were in, and which were out.

As usual, assembling a provisional list of eligible models was the task we set the boffins at RedBook.com.au. They came back with a list of vehicles that were all-new, or at least substantially upgraded, for 2021.

As per our eligibility criteria, candidates for carsales Car of the Year proudly presented by Bingle must be series-production models on sale this year, available for testing by October 31, fitted with autonomous emergency braking and a reversing camera as standard across the range and priced below $250,000 (at least one variant).

RedBook’s preliminary list of 88 models was pared back by the editorial team, which also added a number of models we knew to be on the way Down Under.

New vehicles including the BMW iX, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Kia EV6, Lexus UX 300e, Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Porsche Macan would arrive too late for testing and will be considered for carsales Car of the Year in 2022.

The list of COTY candidates was reduced to 31 contenders by asking judges for a simple ‘yes’ vote for each car’s inclusion. Enough yes votes and the car would make it to the next phase of evaluation.

The list was sent back to RedBook to determine cost-of-ownership data for each of the 31 cars. Cost-to-run factors include fuel, tyres, insurance, servicing and the like, while cost-to-own data comprises financing, warranty coverage, depreciation, retail price and value for money.

RedBook calculated the cost to run and the retained value of our contenders over an ownership period of three years or 60,000km, and each car’s RedBook score was combined with judges’ rankings at a weighting of 40 per cent.

In this way, RedBook provides important consumer considerations that other automotive awards can’t match, allowing us to rank vehicles based on values that matter to new-car buyers.

The next stage of testing involved narrowing the field to all but 10 finalists and two wildcard entries.

After putting our collective heads together, we arrived at our two wildcards: The all-new Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo and the new-generation Subaru Outback.

Our judging panel comprised Editor-in-Chief, Mike Sinclair; Managing Editor, Marton Pettendy; Technical Editor, Ken Gratton; News Editor, Sam Charlwood; Consumer Editor, Nadine Armstrong; Production Editor, Terry Martin; Senior Staff Journalist, Feann Torr; Staff Journalist, Alexandra Lawrence; and two expert carsales contributors, Bruce Newton and Paul Gover.

With so many important new releases in 2021 – after COVID-related delays bringing new models to market in 2020 – it was obvious that driving these cars in isolation just wasn’t going to cut it.

In the absence of our traditional group test processes on a closed course, we needed to drive these cars back-to-back in the real world to make an informed decision.

A window of opportunity for exactly that to occur opened just before our judging deadline, allowing most judges to drive most finalists over the same roads on the same day in Melbourne.

The last-minute drive day helped confirm or repudiate our conceptions of each car. For example, the Land Rover Defender 90 was declared “flawed” by one judge. And that judge wasn’t alone.

While the new Defender 110 was Highly Commended in COTY 2020, its subsequent two-door sibling is let down by its packaging. The rear seat is difficult to access and there’s little room for cargo, preventing the kind of off-road treks its short wheelbase is so well suited to.

The Volkswagen Golf 8 was a car that divided opinion, with one judge saying it was “all the car I would ever need” but others pointing to its carryover engine, confusing infotainment ergonomics and higher pricing.

While the new Hyundai Tucson was branded as carrying a chassis tune that wasn’t ‘by Aussies, for Aussies’, it still impressed mightily with its solid blend of practicality, technology and value.

Likewise, the all-new Genesis GV70 impressed many judges with its refinement. The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo came close to matching the Taycan sedan’s Highly Commended ranking last year but the new Toyota LandCruiser was deemed too narrow-focused to be in the top half of finalists.

Similarly, while the new Kia Carnival, Skoda Octavia and Subaru Outback make huge strides over the models they replace and stake solid claims in their respective segments, none of them attracted the fanfare of judges like our eventual top three – the Hyundai IONIQ 5, Polestar 2 and Kia Sportage.

After careful consideration following the drive day, each judge was asked to cast their respective votes in an independent ‘blind’ poll – sequenced in order from 12 points to 1, with 12 being each judge’s favourite car.

Final judges’ scores were again combined with RedBook scores – with a weighting of 40 per cent – and the IONIQ 5 emerged a clear winner ahead of the Polestar 2 and Kia Sportage.

For the second time in six years (following the Tesla Model S in 2015), an EV has won our premier award.

The Hyundai IONIQ 5 is the deserving winner of the 2021 carsales Car of the Year, proudly presented by Bingle.