The Hyundai Exter was declared the Indian Car Of The Year (ICOTY) for 2024. And before I start to explain why it won, I’ll just say that car model years are a bit silly. You are buying 2024 Model Year cars in 2023 and these models will progress for a few months through 2024 before being replaced by the 2025 model. There is some logic to that, but despite writing on the automotive industry for two decades, this still confuses me at times. Just as trying to figure out the logic of German car nomenclature.
I attended the jury round at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida a couple of weeks ago and voted on the top cars of the year. Not just for ICOTY, but also for ‘Green Car by ICOTY’ and ‘Premium Car by ICOTY’ awards. These were won by the Hyundai IONIQ5 and the BMW 7-series, respectively.
My favourite car of 2023 has to be the Hyundai IONIQ5. I spent six months with it and it has significantly changed my perspective on electric vehicles. EVs will play a role in reducing pollution inside metropolitan areas and also help energy-poor nations like India reduce their dependence on oil imports. But there are still many issues, including higher purchase costs and of course, the disturbing dominance of China – from Lithium mining to full vehicles. No company exemplifies this as much as BYD, whose Atto 3 was also in contention for the ‘Green Car’ award. It is a very gimmicky vehicle. The door pockets have musical strings across them and play a note. There are a lot of things that make you scratch your head with cars these days, but this was downright bizarre.
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The IONIQ5 was not in contention for the main ICOTY award because of a price cutoff of Rs 40 lakh, and the Hyundai EV costs just a shade under Rs 50 lakh. It was a deserved winner of the ‘Green Car’ award though in the presence of Atto 3, MG Comet and the superlative BMW i7. Giving a ‘Green Car’ award to an opulent Rs 2.5 crore German sedan might have felt a bit tone-deaf. Then again, it might have won, because I didn’t know how my fellow jurors voted.
Honestly, the winning vehicle in ICOTY has to appeal to the maximum number of potential consumers. And consumers are clearly shifting their preference to SUVs. At a level I understand why. This perception that SUVs are ‘safer’ is hardwired into the brains of consumers now. Already, a little above half the passenger vehicles sold in India are SUVs and I wouldn’t hesitate to presume that by the close of the fiscal year, this number would be close to 60 per cent. The Exter exemplifies this trend.
SUVs are expanding both up and down the value chain. Why buy a hatchback like the i10 Nios when you have an Exter that makes you ‘feel’ safer. Although we are still awaiting the Bharat New Car Assessment Program (BNCAP) tests for both cars. The Maruti Jimny came in as first runner-up with the Honda Elevate while Toyota Innova Hycross shared the second runners-up position. That should tell you a story in itself. All four cars pitch themselves as SUVs. Even though David Ward, President of Global NCAP argued for the government to discourage sales of SUVs, consumers and manufacturers have shifted wholeheartedly.
Now, in the Premium Car category, you can unashamedly give the award to a Rs 2.5 crore Bavarian rocketship. The BMW 7-series blew me away when I drove it for the first time. That is not to say that the other contenders were not ‘premium’ in any way, but this vehicle reset all the benchmarks.
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The ICOTY awards were held at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai and were sponsored by JK Tyre, which has supported the awards for the 19 years since its inception with JK Tyre Chairman Raghupati Singhania handing out the prizes.
For the record, the jury members of the ICOTY 2024 were Yogendra Pratap and Rahul Ghosh from Auto Today; Dhruv Behl and Ishan Raghava from AutoX; Aspi Bhatena and Joshua Varghese from Car India; Sirish Chandran and Atish Mishra from Evo India; Pablo Chaterji and Kartik Ware from Motoring; Bob Rupani and Rohit Paradkar from Overdrive – these automotive publications being the partners of the award. Alongside them, there were six independent jurors Abhay Verma, Ameya Dandekar, Arpit Mahendra, Cyrus Dhabhar, Vikrant Singh and myself.
@kushanmitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. He is one of the jury members on the ICOTY panel. Views are personal.