World Car Awards

Kicking off another blistery spring day is the World Car Awards sponsored by Bridgestone. They’ve packed the cream of the crop vehicles in the Special Events Hall in the Jacob Javits Center this morning.

69 international auto journalist were brought together to put these cars thru rigorous tests. Two voting stages occurred and the votes were sent to KPMG for tabulation.

Up for grabs this morning were the:

World Car Design Award
The top three contenders in this segment were the BMW i3, the Mazda 3 and the Mercedes Benz C Class. The BMW i3 is the winner of this award.

World Luxury Car Award
The nominees for this segment were the Mercedes S Class, the Bentley Flying Spur, and the Range Rover Sport. The Mercedes S Class takes this award home.

World Green Car Award
This seemingly more important segment showcases the BMW i3, Audi A-3 E-Tron, and the Volkswagen XL1. The winner went to the BMW i3.

World Performance Car Award
The all important Performance segment was fielded with the venerable Porsche 911 GT3, Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, and the Ferrari 458 Speziale. The Performance Award goes to the Porsche 911 GT3.

World Car of the Year Awards
The prestigious World Car of the Year Award was whittled down from 24 cars down to the three finalists: the all new Mazda 3, the BMW 3 series, Mercedes C-Class, and the Audi 3 series. The winner of the 10th anniversary of the WCA is the Audi A3. The winner was accepted by Scott Keogh, the President of Audi of America.

Also presenting this morning was PRIME RESEARCH a company that researches trends in the automotive industry found that the top 5 trends based on an internet scrub are:
-Smart efficiency
-Lightweight construction
-Design
-Connectivity and digital intelligence
-New energy powertrains

The Lightweight construction trend went from 8th place to 2nd this year. Engine downsizing is more important in this category followed by aluminum materials such as found in the new F150 trucks, followed by material mix and at fourth place, surprisingly, is carbon fiber.

Electric cars went down to 5th from 3rd in trends this year. Plug in hybrid still strongest in trends.  Electric Vehicles led by Tesla and i3

In car electronics and connectivity has an increased role now more than ever. Thru trend research it is estimated that Autonomous driving is within reach in 5 years. While in the digital integration realm Google leads this segment, followed by apple and then Microsoft.

More of these trends can be found at World-car-trends.com