The world car of the year is a 2.5-ton electric car for 1.95 million, the best sports car is a 2.3-ton electric car for 1.8 million CZK

Are we all crazy to be willing to pretend that such heavy, inherently inefficient and extremely expensive cars with inevitably limited utility given the equivalent of 20- to 25-litre tanks are groundbreaking, deserving of a title?

In 2020, the Kia Telluride became the World Car of the Year. The success of the car company at that time was underlined by the Soul EV model, which dominated the city car category. The following year was dedicated mainly to the Germans, but two years ago the Koreans took over the polls in full force. The best car was chosen as the Hyundai Ioniq 5, which also won the award for best design and best electric car of the year. Last year, the same category was dominated by the Ioniq 6, but the Kia EV6 GT won the Sports Car of the Year award.

It was already a controversial election, in all cases it was about marginal and nothing revolutionary bringing electric cars with fat price tags, but this year the absurdity of the poll advanced even further. And it’s a parade of both Korean brands again. Globally, the Kia EV9 will reign for the next twelve months, while the Ioniq 5 N has become the king of sports cars. And the EV9 is of course not only the best car of the year, but also the best electric car of the year, any other result would not make sense technically.

We congratulate the Koreans, but we can’t help but add that we don’t even understand what Hyundai or Kia offer so interesting, what new things they came up with and how they surpass the rest of the electric world, let alone internal combustion cars. With a basic weight exceeding 2.5 tons, an output of only 204 horsepower and a price of at least CZK 1,949,980, the EV9 does not represent anything that would move the automotive world forward, almost no one will buy such a car. And those who reach for it will best understand how much a battery with a capacity corresponding to about 25 liters of diesel in the tank of a diesel car is limiting the usability of such a monster.

The Ioniq 5 N isn’t any better. It looks like a sporty hatchback, but it’s more of a crossover with an absolutely insane weight of over 2.3 tons, which starts at 1,799,990 CZK. Again: Who will buy this? Who can say that such a car means anything more in its class than the VW Golf VII GTI of 10 years ago? However, this car with a weight starting at 1.35 tons (that is, almost a ton less) and at almost a third of the price against the Ionuiq was the peak of efficiency in any sense of the word.

But we probably won’t get an honest answer from any of the hundreds of journalists from 29 countries. We would rather add that, in addition to the Koreans, the Germans, Japanese and Swedes/Chinese also got their way. The BMW 5/i5 series became the luxury car of the year, while the Toyota Prius won the award for design. In the category of city cars, the Volvo EX30 won, i.e. another electric car. The purely internal combustion engine clearly has no chance in the survey, even though the BMW 5 can still be one.

We will just add that right now we are testing the Kia EV6 GT, that is, an electric car with 585 horses and an acceleration better than that of many super sports. And it must be admitted that once you step on the gas pedal, the acceleration is really crushing and intoxicating. But only until you realize that every such movement of the right leg is accompanied by a reduction of the battery capacity by at least one percent, and from a range of 424 kilometers on a single charge, it will easily do tens of kilometers. However, you only have 77.4 kWh batteries for such a tremendous performance in such a heavy (2.2 tons and more) car. The EV9 has the same architecture, it’s just bigger and heavier…

The world car of 2024 is the Korean electric SUV EV9. More like a 2.5-ton car, which you can’t buy from us for less than two million crowns. Photo: Kia

And the best sports car is the 2.3-ton Ioniq 5. But come on, nobody can take this seriously anymore. Photo: Hyundai

Source: World Car Awards

Petr Prokopec

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