As another year draws to a close, we reach that exciting time where we round up the very best new cars on sale for our annual Car of the Year awards. But in a sea of different new car awards, what makes The Car Expert Awards 2024 different?
Rather than just give you our opinion, we manually curate reviews and scores from 35 of the UK’s leading motoring websites (including our own), with more than 15,000 car reviews from all of these sources in our database.
Every score from every review is fed into our sophisticated algorithm, which adjusts them for date and normalises them to account for all the different scoring systems used. That gives us a definitive score for every new car on sale in the UK. So our awards don’t just give you the opinion of one source, but a consensus of all the top motoring titles in the UK.
Regular readers will notice that we’ve dated the awards to reflect the coming year (2024) rather than the year just ending (2023). Since the results will be of more benefit to anyone buying a new car in 2024 than people who’ve already bought a car this year, we feel it’s a more relevant way to do it. This caused some internal debate, but ultimately consumer benefit won out over strict technical accuracy.
Our eligibility rules
A new model is a car that has arrived in the UK in the last 12 months – which means cars on the road and registered, not just announced or available to order but arriving sometime next year. You should be able to pop down to your local dealer and see any of our award winners in the metal – and buy on one the spot.
In previous years, we have insisted that all winners must have a current, valid Euro NCAP safety rating of at least four stars. Unfortunately, we’ve had to remove that requirement for this year because there simply haven’t been enough new cars rated by Euro NCAP by the time our entries closed.
Last year, the safety organisation tested 66 different new cars. This year, it’s only six (although another six or so results will be published after our deadline has passed). That means that most of the new cars launched this year would be ineligible, which would be highly unfair.
A few cars were ineligible last year because they hadn’t been tested, but have since received a complying Euro NCAP score so they included in this year’s awards. Assuming that there are a suitable number of ratings published next year by Euro NCAP, we hope that this requirement will return for next year’s awards.
And the winner is…
Our Expert Rating Index, based on reviews from 35 of the UK’s best motoring websites, shows that electric vehicles are continuing to achieve better review scores than their petrol and diesel equivalents. This was evident last year, and has strengthened further this year. And for the third year in a row, our overall winner is an electric car.
Based on all of the car reviews published by the UK motoring media over the last year, The Car Expert’s Car of the Year 2024 is the MG 4.
The Car Expert Car of the Year 2024: MG 4
The MG 4 is, quite simply, a remarkable car. It’s fully electric, with a battery range of more than 300 miles on some versions. It has a five-star safety rating. It’s very well kitted out. It comes with a seven-year warranty. And its pricing makes every other family car on the road, let alone other electric cars, look silly.
Over the last decade, there have been plenty of good and even great EVs, but only two seminal electric cars. The first was the Tesla Model S, which showed the world how capable electric cars can be. And the second is the MG 4, which is bringing electric motoring within reach of every new car buyer. The Tesla changed the car industry, but it’s the MG 4 that could genuinely deliver on all the promises of the EV revolution.
As well as taking the overall prize for Car of the Year 2024, the MG 4 also wins our Best Medium Car award.
The MG 4 wasn’t launched in 2023, but was ineligible last year as it hadn’t received its Euro NCAP stamp of approval as required by our 2022 rules until after our deadline. However, it was awarded a five-star safety rating in December last year so became eligible for this year’s awards.
