The best new cars of this year are set to be revealed…

Trying to pick the best new car of the year causes endless arguments among motoring journalists – every single year. Every automotive title has its own ideas about how such a title should be awarded, based on their own criteria.

Every car reviewer is a human being with their own ideas and their own preferences. Every car review is one person’s (or one group of people’s) opinion of how good or bad a car is. If you’re only relying on one source, you’re not getting the full picture.

Our approach at The Car Expert is simple. Using the power of our exclusive Expert Rating Index, we’ve tracked new car reviews from 35 of the UK’s leading motoring websites over the last 12 months and compiled all of the scores awarded to each new model. All of those scores are fed into our sophisticated algorithm that accounts for the various different scoring system that the different websites and magazines use. And we’ll use that data to produce our awards for the very best new cars you can buy.

Unlike our full Expert Ratings, which include safety data from Euro NCAP, running cost data from Clear Vehicle Data, and reliability data from MotorEasy, we only use the media review scores for the awards. This is because we often don’t get a full suite of other data for brand-new cars for months (or even years) after they’re launched.

We’ve tweaked the award categories for this year to reflect the changing new car market. The old industry definitions of ‘car’ and ‘SUV’ are no longer really relevant, so we’ve had a rethink.

We still differentiate between ‘best small car’ and ‘best small crossover’, as there is a clear distinction between small hatchbacks and taller SUV-style vehicles. But for medium and large vehicles, the lines have become so blurred that it is better to group all different car types together. Instead, we’ve added ‘premium’ categories for small and large cars, as it tends to better reflect how buyers look for cars.

We’ll reveal the winners, including our overall Car of the Year 2025, at 10am on Tuesday 3 December.

Award categories

With our revised award categories, there are 12 awards on offer this year.

Best new cars and class champions

The new models certainly grab all of the attention from the motoring media, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re better than what’s already available.

In each of our award categories, we recognise not just the best model launched in the last 12 months but also the top-ranked cars overall. In some cases, a new model has jumped straight to the top of the pile while, in others, an existing car is still top dog.

To help our readers appreciate the relative quality of the best newcomers, we have Best New Models and Class Champions for each category. And, recognising the rapid growth of electric cars against the steady decline of petrol and diesel versions, we have separate class champion recognition for the very best electric and internal combustion cars.

Eligibility

A new model is a car that has been launched and comprehensively reviewed by the UK motoring media over the last 12 months. Most will already be on local roads by now, although some models may not yet be available in showrooms just yet. UK pricing and specifications for all contenders will have been set, however.

Last year, we removed the requirement for our winners to have a current, valid Euro NCAP safety rating of at least four stars because there simply hadn’t been enough new cars rated by Euro NCAP during the year. That’s the same this year, so again we’ve had to waive the Euro NCAP safety requirements.

The class of 2024

Here, in alphabetical order, are all the cars eligible for The Car Expert Awards 2025. Some were launched late in 2023, so they missed the cut-off date for last year’s awards. Overall, we have about 30% more new cars for this year’s awards than last year, as it’s been a bumper year for new model launches.

*Cars with an asterisk are EVs, while the rest are petrol and/or diesel and/or hybrid

The awards will be announced at 10am on Tuesday 3 December, so place your bets and check back for all the winners!

A look back at previous results

Car of the Year 2024

Car of the Year 2022

Car of the Year 2021

* There was no Car of the Year 2023 as we changed the dating system *