At the New York International Auto Show, the World Car Awards for 2026 have been revealed. It was the 22nd time that a car obtained the title of World Car of the Year, and this year it was the new BMW iX3, the first of the ‘Neue Klasse’, that won.
The World Car Awards are not as old as the European Car of the Year award, which was handed out this year at the Brussels Motor Show to the Mercedes CLA. There are other differences, too.
Where the European COTY jury limits itself to one and only award, THE car of the year, the 98 jury members from 33 countries in the World Car Award have several awards across different categories. As a retired COTY jury member, I can say it’s much easier to choose across categories, and it’s also much friendlier toward manufacturers, giving them more chances to win.
Outstanding
The winner of this year, the iX3, combines two categories, which is logical when it’s an electric car. It would be very odd if an electric vehicle were nominated as the best car in the world, it wouldn’t win the title of best electric car in the world, either.
The title confirms that BMW’s first car in the ‘Neue Klasse’ line-up is a real hit. That seems to be confirmed in the market, as BMW has already felt obliged to increase planned production volumes to keep up with demand.
The other awards
The other awards are distributed as follows. The World Luxury Car Award goes for the second time to the Lucid Brand, with the Lucid Gravity. The car was chosen from a list of eight contenders; the top three were the Lucid Gravity, the Cadillac Vistiq, and the Volvo ES90.
The World Performance Car of 2026 is the Hyundai Ioniq 6 N. It’s the second time Hyundai has won this title, while the Ioniq 6 N’s brother, the Ioniq 5 N, won in 2024. The top three here, chosen from 20 contenders, were the BMW M2 CS, the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray, and, of course, the winner, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N.
The World Urban Car award went to a new Chinese brand, Nio. The Firefly had to beat five contenders in his category. The top three were the Chevrolet Spark EUV (also sold as Baojun Yep Plus), the Nio Firefly, and the Hyundai Venue.
Last but not least, there’s the winner for the best car design. The World Car Design of the Year Award goes to the Mazda 6e (also sold as EZ6). In this category, a panel of seven respected design experts was asked to compile a shortlist from the 90+ contenders. The final top three were the Kia PV5, the Mazda 6e, and the Volvo ES90.
It’s already the third World Car design award for Mazda and a real confirmation for the good work the Belgian designer Jo Stenuit is doing, as Mazda’s Design Director for Europe, inspired by the work of Japanese design chief Ikuo Maeda, known as the architect of Mazda’s appreciated ‘Kodo-Soul of Motion’ design language.
A last, remarkable feat: in all categories, it was a fully electric car that won. To further please the car industry and its CEOs, there is also a seventh World Car Award, one for the ‘Car Person of the Year’. To make BMW’s triumph complete, this year has been won by the departing BMW CEO, Oliver Zipse.
