NACTOY, the US equivalent of the European Car of the Year award, has announced the final winners in Car, Truck, and Utility Vehicle categories. Spoiler: out of the many EVs nominated for the prize, none made it into the final.
A jury of half a hundred US and Canadian car journalists proclaimed the 11th-generation Honda Civic the best light passenger vehicle, pushing the much-hyped and luxury-laden Lucid Air EV to the second place. The GTI and R versions of the Volkswagen Golf hatchback rounded off the top three.
In the Truck category, the all-electric Rivian R1T was a crowd favorite and had no problem coming ahead of the Hyundai Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, it yielded the first place to the new Ford Maverick, an impressively affordable compact pickup with plenty of practical design solutions.
The new Ford Bronco won the SUV award, pulling ahead of both the Hyundai Ioniq 5 EV and the Genesis GV70.
NACTOY published the long list of nominations in the past September. It included a number of other battery cars, such as the GMC Hummer EV, the Mercedes-Benz EQS, and the Volkswagen ID.4.