The idea of a ‘car of the year’ has been around as long as car experts have been reviewing cars.
For a lot of everyday people who need to buy a new car every three to five years but are not passionately obsessed about the details or don’t have the time to spend test driving and researching the options, knowing that a group of experts have given an award to a particular car is a great tick of approval.
After many years of resisting the rollout of such an award, both at CarExpert and previously at CarAdvice, we decided to change our mind last year. The reason? You. We get a ton of emails from new-car buyers every day and the overarching question is simple: ‘what car should I buy in this category?’
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Going back 10-15 years ago, the choices were far fewer and the options more obvious, but when it comes to buying a new car in 2026, there have never been more competitors to choose from.
Australia is the most competitive new-car market in the Western world. We have a completely open market when it comes to car companies entering and selling their vehicles here.
There are few tariffs and not many hurdles, and given you can cover roughly 80 per cent of Australia’s population by setting up dealers in a handful of major cities, the barrier to entry is very low and the potential profits very high.
This has seen an explosion of new brands over the last 10 years, and there are dozens more still to come. As such, last year we decided to institute a simple award system – called CarExpert Choice – based on categories that make sense.
As a business, we collectively test over 1000 different cars per year across Australia and the world, from Australia’s most affordable cars to hypercars. We have an incredible array of knowledge and experience across the business that is on top of not only all new cars in the market but also known issues, post-purchase experiences and more.
The premise for these awards to our in-house car experts was simple: in our chosen categories, which car would you buy for yourself or recommend to your friends and family?
We catalogued every available choice and sat around a table and argued for an extensive period before we all voted and agreed on our winners and finalists.
You will notice we did not pick an overall ‘car of the year’ winner, because we felt that made limited sense and it can’t actually be done properly without months of back-to-back testing.
The models that have won CarExpert Choice awards are the absolute best in their categories and would be our top pick in the CarExpert office when it comes to recommendation and personal preference. The finalists are also excellent choices and should be considered too.
You will see cars like the Tesla Model Y have been shortlisted; this doesn’t mean we all love Elon Musk (although some of us do). It just means that it’s one of the best cars in its segment.
On that same note, these awards are entirely editorially driven and decided only by our expert journalists, who spend their life reviewing cars and creating the amazing content that makes CarExpert what it is today.
Thank you for using CarExpert and we hope these awards help you or your family and friends feel more confident about purchasing your next new car.
To see all the CarExpert Choice winners click here.