HHonestly, I was surprised – along with the other jury members – when Raghupati Singhania, chairperson of JK Tire & Industries, pulled out the scorecard from the envelope and announced that the Kia Carens has won the 2023 Indian Car of the Year award. While I indicated in these columns that the Kia Carens was the most relevant car launched last year, a significant period had already elapsed since its launch in February 2022.
And truth be told, there is a significant element of what I call ‘recentness bias’ in any award criteria. It’s a little tougher in the automobile industry. Kia India Chief Sales Officer Myungsik Sohan came to the award ceremony with the belief that the company’s best chance was in the ICOTY Green Car category in which the EV6 was a contender – and it duly won that award. In fact, most had assumed that either the Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara or the Mahindra Scorpio-N would compete for the top prize. Instead, they finished as first and second runners-up, respectively.
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behind the scenes awards
The jury, which included me, spent a day at the Buddh International Circuit outside Greater Noida – I outline this in a behind-the-scenes video – for round one. While there was a lot of time spent watching the cars line up, we also refreshed our memory about the vehicles, although – and I must put this out there – we didn’t judge them based on driving them around the racetrack. As ICOTY Jury President Dhruv Behl explains: “We drive all these cars in the conditions used by their buyers throughout the year. ICOTY is not about the ‘best’ car, it’s about the most relevant car for the Indian market Conductivity, technology, and value-for-money are all factors that we, as jury members, must consider when allocating the points available to us.
But that’s the beauty of the scoring system the judges use at ICOTY. We were each given 25 points and given a pool of 10 shortlisted cars, from which we had to grade at least five, with a maximum of 10 points awarded to any one car. And we each had to name a clear winner. The scoring system was anonymised, tabulated and audited independently by Deloitte. This was followed by the typical chit-chat over coffee among the jury members, who tried to find out who won, but, as I said, even I was surprised when the final result came.
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a turning point, a big winner
Talking about the results, the revolutionary Kia EV6 won the Green Car Award, the Premium Car by ICOTY went to the Mercedes-Benz EQS 580. told me that the electric car winning the premium car category was a turning point in the automotive industry.
“I think electrics will continue to win in this category, especially with some of the cars that we and our competitors have prepared,” he said.
But Kia was clearly the big winner, and Sohan got emotional after winning the top prize: “It validates all the hard work we’ve put in over the past few years, and it goes out to all our employees, partners and dealers as well.” We are the fastest company in India to sell 5,00,000 units in just three years after starting production and that too with the pandemic. I will cherish this moment.
And that’s the power of the ICOTY Award.
There is also the Indian Motorcycle of the Year (IMOTY) award, which has also been supported by JK Tire since its inception. I am not a jury member of that panel. Royal Enfield bagged the award for the third time in the last five years for its Royal Enfield Hunter. Accepting the award, Sid Lall, Managing Director, Royal Enfield said that the entire top management of the company rides and develops motorcycles with passion.
The 18-member jury at ICOTY consisted of automotive journalists from a variety of publications and experienced as well as young journalists. All jury members had at least five years of experience in automotive journalism and car evaluation. The panel included Dhruv Behl and Ishaan Raghav autoxFrom Bertrand D’Souza and Bob Rupani overdrive, from Muralidhar Swaminathan The Hindu Business LineFrom Abhik Das and Dhruv Saxena AutoTodayFrom Sirish Chandran and Aatish Mishra Evo IndiaFrom Pablo Chatterjee and Karthik Ware motoring worldby Girish Karkera Times autorevolution possible Times drivefrom Amey Dandekar CarDekhoAbhay Verma from Turbocharged, and finally, your columnist.
@kushanmitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. He was one of the jury members of the ICOTY panel. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Hamra Like)