An electrical automotive has been named WhatCar?’s automotive of the 12 months for 2026, beating rivals from Mercedes, Audi, and Tesla
An electrical automotive has received the distinguished WhatCar? automotive of the 12 months award (Picture: Getty)
In the course of the winter, main motoring publications maintain awards ceremonies during which they identify their high vehicles for the upcoming 12 months. Some announce their winners in December, while others wait a month and reveal which vehicles have secured the highest prize in January.
Famend motoring publication WhatCar? lately introduced their award winners, and while there have been a wide range of classes, there may solely be one automotive of the 12 months.
Stated automotive was an electrical car which had already acquired a number of awards from related motoring publications, and appears set to seize the imaginations of the 2026 market.
The highly-rated car was the electrical BMW iX3, a big electrical premium SUV, which was given the awards not due to what it’s, however what it stands for.
Of their abstract of why that they had given the iX3, whose costs begin from £58,755, the award, WhatCar? said it was as a result of the automotive had leapfrogged its rivals “with a stepchange in functionality”.
The BMW iX3 (Picture: Getty)
They defined that, alongside its technological prowess, its 500 mile vary would make nervousness over electrical vehicles “a factor of the previous”, in addition to the very fact it could possibly cost (refuel) at excessive speeds.
Moreover, they mentioned the driving force aids had been efficient within the operation of the iX3, particularly when it got here to the automotive’s agility.
General, they concluded: “Our winner is a automotive that may make you smile for any variety of causes and, extra importantly, it’ll hold you smiling in the way in which that solely nice vehicles do. That’s precisely what the iX3 is: a very nice automotive.”
Nevertheless, WhatCar? aren’t the one folks to have heaped reward on the iX3. On the finish of final 12 months, Prime Gear additionally made it their automotive of the 12 months.
Speaking in regards to the iX3 at Prime Gear’s 2026 Automobile of the Yr Awards, the advisor editor of the Prime Gear Journal, Paul Horrell mentioned: “The iX3 is wholly new. Above and beneath. Bumper to bumper. Floor to cloud.
“It has the magic 500-mile claimed vary, a wholly new inside idea, however most significantly it drives like a BMW should – not like a cumbersome EV crossover, or soulless digital first zombiemobile.
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“BMW’s vehicles have all the time strived to be on the tip of mainstream excellence – the iX3 places them again the place they belong.”
In a press release following their victory the CEO of BMW Group UK and Eire David George mentioned: “The launch of the brand new BMW iX3 represents extra than simply the debut of an distinctive new mannequin – it indicators the beginning of an thrilling and transformative chapter for our model.”
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