Samantha Lee/Business Insider
- Welcome to the seventh installment of Insider's Car of the Year competition, featuring 16 finalists.
- The finalists come from the more than five dozen cars we road tested during the year — from SUVs and sedans to supercars and EVs.
- Brands represented this year are Chevrolet, Cadillac, Ferrari, Honda, McLaren, Jeep, Kia, Lincoln, Nissan, Polestar, Porsche, Range Rover, and Toyota.
It's officially the best time of the year. Welcome to Insider's annual Car of the Year awards, now in its seventh (seventh!) installment.
This year was hard for everyone, but at least the cars were good. We've tested everything from SUVs, sedans, pickup trucks, and grand-tourers to electric cars, sports cars, and supercars. From all of those, we've selected 16 finalists to be considered our Car of the Year.
This year, Matt DeBord, Alanis King, and Kristen Lee handled the driving, reviewing, and photographing of the cars. We all look for and appreciate different things about different cars, but we were able to agree on these 16 as final contenders.
Our methodology is straightforward, focused on basic questions:
- Is there a strong business case for the vehicle?
- Did our reviewers agree that the vehicle should be included? We have to come to a consensus, even though we might disagree on some particulars.
- Was the vehicle objectively excellent? There has to be some sort of wow! factor.
- Did the vehicle stand out from the sea of competition, particularly when it comes to technology? A Car of the Year finalist has to be special.
- Can we strongly recommend buying or leasing the car? We demand to know whether we'd buy the vehicle ourselves if we had the resources.
We'll announce the 2020 Car of the Year on December 30 and prepare you for the big event by revealing our three runners-up the day before.