Friday the 13th is lucky day at Jeep.
This famous day in January 2023 will be remembered as the day the Jeep Avenger won the Car of the Year trophy.
This award is not only the most famous in the automotive industry, the one that all manufacturers wish to have on their list one day or another, but also the oldest.
The Coty (Car of the year) celebrates its sixtieth anniversary this year.
COTY
Jeep's victory, for the first time in the Coty final, took shape quickly.
If, like other more political subjects, the detailed results of the votes show that Europe is still far from speaking with a single voice and being harmonized, the American SUV developed especially for the European market has the subject of a clear consensus.
The 58 jurors representing 22 European countries, including yours truly, voted en masse for this small SUV designed and developed from the electrified e-GMP platform of the Peugeot e-2008.
Only a Swedish colleague awarded him only 2 points out of the 25 points that each journalist must distribute to the seven candidates, knowing that it is forbidden to award more than 10 points to his favorite vehicle.
Four journalists gave it the maximum score.
In their whole,
the jurors appreciated the homogeneity of the model and its positioning.
The smallest electric SUV on the market (4.08 m), the Avenger is distinguished by high driving pleasure and a relatively competitive price, from 36,500 euros excluding bonuses.
COTY
Thus, the first electric vehicle of the American brand won an indisputable victory, pocketing 328 points.
The Volkswagen ID.
Buzz, Wolfsburg's electric Combi that keeps talking about him, climbs on the second step of the podium with a gap of 87 points (241 points).
With this vehicle, it seems that the jurors let their hearts speak more than voted according to the criteria in force for the election of the Coty.
Third, the Nissan Ariya, the first electric SUV from the Japanese manufacturer, completes the podium with 211 points.
A car that we did not defend, believing that driving pleasure was not there in terms of behavior, sensations and comfort.
Similarly, the price of this SUV, around 60,000 euros, seems too high to us to meet the criteria for the trophy.
Conversely,
Fifth in the standings with 163 points, the Renault Austral was our favorite of the year.
This new model seems to us to have become the reference in the compact SUV segment of generalist brands with its human-machine interface based on a new digital panel giving access to the Google universe, the agility of its four-wheel steering and its efficient hybrid engine. 200 brilliant horsepower thanks to particularly controlled fuel consumption (around 6 l/100 km recorded over long distances).
Penultimate, the Peugeot 408 was not unworthy but it seemed to a large majority of the jury that a body version could not aspire to first place.
This does not prevent this sedan of a new kind from being a perfectly accomplished model and in line with the latest Peugeots.
The Toyota bZ4X - Subaru Solterra electric duo brought up the rear.
To the weakness of its autonomy (barely 200 km on the highway), it is necessary to add a complicated ergonomics and concerns of youth which forced to postpone its launch on the markets.
Finally, we note that in European countries where there is still an automobile industry, the jurors have, in a non-negligible proportion, voted for the models of their national brands.
This applies above all to the Germans, the French and the Italians.