Czech Car of the Year will certainly not be Škoda. It is missing from the list of nominees for this year

Motoring journalists choose the car of the year in the Czech Republic for 2023. The aim of the poll is to award the best car that was launched on the Czech market last year. The technical innovations that the model brings are taken into account, as well as its level of safety features, economy, driving characteristics, price, design, comfort and performance. So it is a summary list of often conflicting requirements.

The list of nominated cars was adjusted until the last minute, it was not certain whether all the models that the car companies wanted to include in the poll would meet all the conditions. Especially those that require that the car can be ordered at least last December of last year and that the importer can provide the car for press test drives.

In the end, the list settled on twenty-six novelties from nineteen brands. Eight cars have a purely electric drive. After the break, the Mercedes-Benz car company entered the poll. Also new is the Chinese car manufacturer MG, which started selling its cars on the Czech market only last year. This year will be interesting also for the reason that even a single Škoda is missing from the list, the domestic automaker did not present any completely new model last year.

Some manufacturers entered two of their cars in the poll, Ford with Ranger Raptor and Tourneo Connect, Kia with Niro and Sportagi, the mentioned Mercedes-Benz (EQE and GLC), Nissan with Qashqai and X-Trail, Toyota nominated Aygo X and Corolla Cross and Volkswagen trust each other with both new electric cars, both ID.5 and ID.Buzz.

There are fewer members of the jury this year, twenty in particular. Last year, 33 journalists chose the car of the year. “This is one of the biggest innovations, the other is that we wanted to make it as close as possible to the European COTY poll. That’s why the public will no longer vote in parallel on the Internet as in the past,” explains Petr Horák, spokesperson for the Association of Automobile Importers SDA, which announces the poll.

The jury will now select five cars from the list that they consider to be the best from a subjective point of view. With the same number of votes at the border of the final five, even more cars with the same number of nominations can advance to the second round. After all, this happened last year, which combined two years into one due to the coronavirus pandemic.

At that time, the following models were in question in alphabetical order: BMW i4, Dacia Jogger, Opel Astra, Peugeot 308, Subaru Outback and Škoda Fabia, while the Munich electric car won the title of Car of the Year 2021/2022, for the first time in the history of the poll.

Complete list of nominated cars: