Only one European

These are the winners of the World Car Awards

Six categories, but only five winners? The Kia EV9 is a double winner.(Bild: Hyundai, Kia, Limberger, Toyota, Volvo, Krone KREATIV)

The World Car Awards have been decided. The winners in six categories were announced at the New York Auto Show. The big winner is the Kia EV - it took the title of World Car of the Year and Electric Car of the Year. Only in one category did a thoroughly European car come out on top.

The jury, consisting of 100 motoring journalists from 29 countries worldwide, including "Krone" motoring editor Stephan Schätzl, made its decision: Five of the six titles go to Asian manufacturers, if you include Volvo as a Geely subsidiary. Only BMW won a category.

The dominance of electric drives is also striking, although BMW is also an outlier here, as the 5 Series is not only available with an electric drive, but also as a combustion engine. And the Toyota Prius won in the only category in which the drive does not play a role: World Car Design.

But in detail - here is an overview of the winners:

Kia EV9 - World Car of the Year and World Electric Vehicle(Bild: Hersteller)

BMW 5 Series - World Luxury Car(Bild: Hersteller)

Hyundai Ioniq5 N - World Performance Car(Bild: Hersteller)

Volvo EX30 - World Urban Car(Bild: Hersteller)

Toyota Prius - World Car Design of the Year(Bild: Hersteller)

It is not the first success for Kia: in 2023, the Kia EV6 won the title of World Performance Car, in 2020 the Kia Telluride became World Car of the Year and the Kia Soul EV won the Urban category in the same year.

32 candidates were able to take part in this year's World Car of the Year vote. The requirements include availability in two of the most important markets (China, Europe, India, Japan, Korea, Latin America, USA) and on two continents.