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What went behind Kia Carens winning Indian Car of the Year—and why the award is so powerful

Most presumed that either the Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara or Mahindra Scorpio-N would compete for the top prize. But we jury members were in for a surprise.

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Honestly, I was surprised — along with other jury members — when Raghupati Singhania, chairperson of JK Tyre & Industries, took out the scorecard from the envelope and announced that the Kia Carens had won the 2023 Indian Car Of The Year award. While I had indicated in these columns that the Kia Carens was the most relevant car launched in the past year, a significant period had already elapsed since its launch in February 2022.

And truth be told, in any awarding criterion, there is a significant element of what I call ‘recency bias’. It is a bit tougher in the automobile industry. MyungSik Sohn, chief sales officer at Kia India, came to the awards ceremony believing that the company’s best chance was in the ICOTY Green Car category in which the EV6 was a contender — and it did duly win that award. In fact, most had presumed that either the Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara or Mahindra Scorpio-N would compete for the top prize. Instead, they finished as first and second runners-up, respectively.


The award behind the scenes

The jury, which included me, had spent a day at the Buddh International Circuit outside Greater Noida — I outlined this in a behind-the-scenes video — for a round. While a lot of time was spent lining up cars, we also refreshed our memory about the vehicles, although — and I must put this out there — we did not judge them on the basis of driving them around the racetrack. As Dhruv Behl, chair of the ICOTY jury, points out: “We drive all these cars through the year in the conditions used by their buyers. ICOTY is not about the ‘best’ car, it is about the most relevant car for the Indian market. Drivability, technology, and value-for-money are all factors that we, as jurors, must consider when we allocate the points available to us.”

But that is the beauty of the scoring system that judges at ICOTY utilise. We all were given 25 points and a pool of 10 shortlisted cars, out of which we had to grade at least five, with a maximum of 10 points given to any one car. And each of us had to name a clear winner. The scoring system was undisclosed, tabulated, and audited independently by Deloitte. Then followed the typical chit-chat over coffee among jury members who tried to suss out who won, but, as I said, I was surprised too when the final results came.


Also read: Kudos to Mahindra for getting safety right with Scorpio-N. Now educate drivers too


A turning point, a big winner

Talking of the results, besides the revolutionary Kia EV6 winning  the Green Car award, the Premium Car by ICOTY was won by the Mercedes-Benz EQS 580. While neither results were surprising per se, Santosh Iyer, managing director at Mercedes-Benz India, told me that an electric car winning in 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 rivals have lined up,” he said.

But Kia was clearly the big winner, and Sohn got emotional after winning the top prize: “This validates all the hard work we put in over the past few years, and this is for all our employees, partners, and dealers as well. We are the fastest company to get to 5,00,000 unit sales in India in just three years after starting production and that too with the pandemic. I will cherish this moment.”

And that is the power of the ICOTY award.

There is also the Indian Motorcycle of The Year (IMOTY) award, which, too, has been supported by JK Tyre from the start. I am not a jury member on that panel. Royal Enfield received the award for the third time in the past five years for its Royal Enfield Hunter. While accepting the award, a visibly beaming Sid Lal, managing director at Royal Enfield, said the entire top management of the company rides and develops motorcycles with passion.

The jury of 18 members at ICOTY consisted of automotive journalists from a wide variety of publications and a mix of veteran as well as young journalists. All jury members had at least five years of automotive journalism and car evaluation experience. The panel included Dhruv Behl and Ishan Raghava from AutoX, Bertrand D’Souza and Bob Rupani from Overdrive, Muralidhar Swaminathan from TheHindu BusinessLine, Abhik Das and Dhruv Saxena from AutoToday, Sirish Chandran and Aatish Mishra from Evo India, Pablo Chaterji and Kartik Ware from Motoring World, Girish Karkera from Times Auto, Kranti Sambhav from Times Drive, Ameya Dandekar from CarDekho, Abhay Verma from TURBOCHARGED, Aspi Bhatena and Jim Gorde from CAR India, and lastly, your columnist as well.

@kushanmitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. He was one of the jury members on the ICOTY panel. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)

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