The Volkswagen Group’s hurdle-strewn pathway to its electric-car future may have finally turned a corner with the ID.7’s win in the German Car of the Year award.
The same award that pilloried its troubled ID.3 and ID.4 models when they came out has given the large Volkswagen BEV its outright award in spite of fierce competition from the Hyundai Motor Group and China’s budget MG brand.
The German Car of the Year award filters through a process of a three-day test based out of Alsfeld, near Frankfurt, to narrow down the category winners, then runs through another round of testing out of southern Germany.
This year, it used more than 40 German and international automotive journalists as judges, and the Volkswagen ID.7 took out both the premium (up to €70,000) class as well as the outright award.
The Chinese-built MG4 took out the sub-€35,000 category, the Kia EV9 was chosen as the Luxury (over €90,000) winner, while the Porsche 911 T was declared the Performance car champion.
Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 also claimed the New Energy category.
A relieved Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schäfer accepted the trophy for the ID.7 yesterday.
“We have just launched our ID.7, and it has already been named German Car Of The Year by a prestigious expert jury – an incredible success!
“This win shows that we are on the right path: top quality, intuitive operation, and efficiency that’s actually fun. It’s 100 percent Volkswagen.”
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for Volkswagen’s EV push, with the ID.3 and ID.4 rushed to market and being hammered by automotive journalists – and customers – for brittle-feeling plastics, clunky multimedia systems and short range, along with a hard ride from the rear of the rushed MQB platform.
It’s the sixth time an EV has won the outright GCOTY award, with the Jaguar I-Pace starting the trend in 2019, the Porsche Taycan taking it in 2020, followed by the cult Honda E in 2021 and the Ioniq 5 last year.
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