The New Zealand Motoring Writers Guild has selected a variety of vehicles, spanning small cars, luxury cars, SUVs, fully electric, hybrid, and pure-petrol choices, and price points from under $30K to six figures as finalists for the 2024 edition of the prestigious New Zealand Car of the Year award.

Five fully battery-dedicated models feature, and another four fully embrace hybrid technology. The remaining two have both hybrid and pure petrol offerings within the range.

This shows that, despite reduced interest in electric vehicles on the sales charts over the past 12 months, the Car of the Year award’s administrator, the New Zealand Motoring Writers’ Guild, sees battery-involved mobility becoming ubiquitous in passenger cars.

“Whether it’s the fully electric experience, plug-ins, or self-contained hybrid systems so subtle that some drivers may not even know they are operating, we drive in an increasingly electric world,” says NZ Motoring Writers Guild president Robert Barry.

“That is being decided for us on a global scale.”

Despite only being released for sale in September, Polestar 4 impressed the country’s motoring writers enough to be considered one of the best new cars in 2024. The third all-electric offering from the Swedish headquarters company was the second car launched by Polestar this year, with the range-topping Polestar 3 now for sale in New Zealand.

Watch our complete review of the car in the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR-J8TPvYB4

Sister brand Volvo’s EX30 has brought a market-defining level of eco-awareness to the automotive world. The use of recycled fabrics from the fashion industry, inducing off-cuts from denim jeans, combined with up-cycled PVC window frames, delivers an interior that is both environmentally responsible and innovative.

Watch our complete review of the car in the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJCrqRXv3Y

The third all-electric finalist is the KIA EV9, which, straight out of the box, showed how a big SUV could go EV. With a 2.5 tonne two rating and huge load capacity, EV9 sets the benchmark for fully electric SUVs.

Watch our complete review of the car in the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2YSXd6Sy6Y

Released last year, the all-new MG3 follows up on one of New Zealand’s most popular cars. One in four new hatchbacks sold in 2023 were MG3s. The latest model offers the same market-leading value, combined with MG’s cutting-edge safety tech and the choice of hybrid+ or petrol-only drive trains.

Watch our complete review of the car in the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZsRmrEZH6w

As usual, this latest crop of finalists has been selected from a more comprehensive list of all-new models launched in New Zealand in the past 12 months.

Guild members nationwide will continue evaluating the finalists into early 2025. In February 2025, the winner will be announced live on TVNZ One’s Seven Sharp programme.

Guild members assess the finalists on a specified range of criteria, including how the vehicle performs its intended role, its styling, interior design, and accommodation, fit, finish, and quality, ride and refinement, performance, roadholding and handling, value for money, active and passive safety, and environmental responsibility.

The winning finalist will follow the current title holder, the MG4, to become New Zealand’s latest Car of the Year and the 37^th new model to secure the country’s most prestigious new car honour.