The 2025 ABC Car of the Year Award is in its 54th edition. This prestigious award, sponsored by Michelin, has distinguished annually since 1973 the car that is considered a reference for its characteristics and acceptance among specialists specialized in the automotive sector, … The automobile industry, the general public, and their level of innovation. The winning model will be the one with the highest score after the voting process, which includes a professional jury and ABC readers.
The professional jury is composed of representatives of the most important media in Spain, both general (leaders in their territory and area of influence) and specialized, covering print, digital and television media. The members were chosen at the invitation of the ABC, and each media outlet appoints a representative to vote from among the 12 shortlisted models.
The twelve nominees were presented last Wednesday, November 12, at the “Choice Party,” where representatives of the nominated brands defended the qualities of their models. The list of candidates, which shows a growing presence of electric and electrified models made in Europe and Asia, consists of: BYD Dolpihin Surf, Citroën C5 Aircross, Dacia Bigster, Ebro s400, Fiat Grande Panda, Hyundai Inster, Kia EV3, Leapmotor C10, Lexus RZ, Opel Frontera, Renault 4, Skoda Elroq.
Since Thursday, November 13 at 9:00 AM, ABC has activated the website “mejorcoche.abc.es”. On this page, until midnight on Friday 5 December 2025, the award rules, the list of nominees, the technical specifications of the models, the composition of the professional jury and the voting system for the non-professional jury are available (readers and subscribers of the ABC newspaper).
Voting system and jury
The judging panel is divided into two groups: the professional judging panel and the non-professional judging panel, the latter consisting of ABC Premium subscribers and registered users of the ABC website. The winning car will be determined based on the pool of votes as follows: the vote of the professional jury will have a 70% weight on the final result, while subscribers will contribute 25% and registered users 5%.
Reader voting is subject to specific rules. Each registered user will be able to vote once per day during the specified period. For their part, ABC Premium subscribers will only be able to cast one vote in the entire competition, according to the rules detailed on the site.
As for the professional jury, each member must send his vote via email to the Notary Public of Madrid, Mr. Miguel Mestanza Itormendi, within the specified period. Each model will be evaluated based on the following criteria: design, engine, behavior, interior, consumption, and quality/price ratio. The assigned score must follow a descending order, awarding 13 points to the best car, 11 points to the next, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 point respectively.
Professional vote
It is important to note that members of the professional jury will not be able to award the maximum (13) or minimum (1) points for the same model in all parameters. In this sense, the same model can only be assigned maximum or minimum points for a maximum of 4 parameters, knowing that it is unreasonable for a car to be the best (or worst) in all the categories to be evaluated.
If the notary verifies that the jury did not follow the scoring standards, they will be informed so that they can correct their vote within the specified period. If there is no correction, the said vote will be completely canceled and will not be taken into account in the final count.
Likewise, the ABC reserves the right to dismiss a jury member, with justification, if it deems he or she has used the vote unethically. In the event of a tie in the voting result by the professional jury, the tiebreaker will be resolved by giving priority to the vehicle of the brand that obtained the highest number of maximum points (13 points). If the tie continues, the largest number of votes is counted, which is 11 points, and so on. In addition, if a jury member submits more than one vote, only the last vote received will be considered.
Results and prize
Finally, the notary will record the results of the vote on Wednesday, December 10, to award the award to one model. The ABC Car of the Year Award is a unique and final award, and will consist of an honorable mention and the delivery of a symbolic physical prize, with no financial reward associated with it. After that, an awards ceremony will be organized.
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