Car of the Year 2026 Opens Voting: Revolutionizing How Every Vehicle is Celebrated

Entering its sixth consecutive year, the Car of the Year Awards continues to solidify its position as Vietnam’s most prestigious automotive award. It uniquely combines expert evaluations from a distinguished Judging Panel with direct consumer voting, ensuring a comprehensive and balanced assessment.

AWARD BLENDING EXPERTISE AND CONSUMER VOICE

Launched in 2021, the Car of the Year Awards is Vietnam’s first annual nationwide program designed to evaluate and honor new car models from a consumer-centric perspective.

The program’s core distinction lies in its dual and independent scoring model:

A Judging Panel comprising over 30 esteemed experts nationwide, representing automotive journalism, engineering, business, education, regulatory bodies, associations, and the automotive community.

A public voting platform for consumers to share their opinions.

This combination ensures results reflect both professional insights and real-world consumer experiences, guaranteeing fairness, objectivity, and transparency. In 2025 alone, the program recorded over 80,000 consumer votes.

MAJOR CHANGES IN THE 2026 CAR OF THE YEAR AWARDS

The 2026 edition introduces significant adjustments to better align with market demands and actual purchasing behaviors in Vietnam:

Streamlined Segments – Closer to Consumer Needs

This year, the number of segments has been reduced to 9, making comparisons and voting more straightforward and practical. This change builds on last year’s shift to categorize vehicles based on price rather than body style.

Key segment differences in the 2026 Awards include: no distinction between high and low ground clearance vehicles, and categorization based on usage purpose (family or business).

Price Cap at 2 Billion VND

The program focuses on affordable vehicles—the segment with the highest sales volume and direct impact on the majority of Vietnamese consumers.

No Single “Car of the Year” Title

Instead of a single ultimate award, the 2026 Awards will recognize vehicles across multiple distinct categories, reflecting the market’s diversity and varying consumer needs.

The official 2026 award categories include:

Electric Vehicle of the Year 2026 (EV of the Year 2026)

Hybrid Car of the Year 2026

Most Impressive Car 2026

Most Promising Car 2026

Family Car of the Year 2026

Service Car of the Year 2026

This approach ensures each vehicle is evaluated based on its specific role, target audience, and core value, rather than being compared across disparate categories.

UNIFIED SCORING CRITERIA – BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN EXPERTS AND CONSUMERS

A key innovation this year is the introduction of a unified scoring system for both the Judging Panel and consumers. This pilot initiative aims to enhance interaction and incorporate real-world user experiences into evaluations.

Both the Judging Panel and consumers will score vehicles based on 6 unified criteria. These criteria are annually reviewed, adjusted, and updated to ensure they:

Align with the practical needs of Vietnamese consumers

Keep pace with emerging consumer trends and technologies

Reflect shifts in the automotive market

Through these measures, the 2026 Car of the Year Awards aims to deliver a more transparent, multifaceted, and consumer-aligned evaluation system.

All vehicles are assessed based on 6 core criteria:

Price & Resale Value

Operating Costs

Durability & Reliability

Safety

Design & Comfort

Performance & Technology

VEHICLE SEGMENTS (UNDER 2 BILLION VND)

Starting in 2024, to better align with consumer thinking, the Organizing Committee and Judging Panel of the Car of the Year Awards shifted from categorizing vehicles by size, style, and class to a new system based on price and body style. In 2026, segments are further refined to reflect family, business, and pickup truck consumer needs.

Additionally, to focus on the mass market, the program limits entries to vehicles priced under 2 billion VND.

With these changes, the 2026 Awards features 9 segments, with fewer versions per segment, all priced under 2 billion VND.

TEST DRIVE EVENT FOR 24 MODELS WITH 20 JUDGING PANEL MEMBERS

The Northern region test drive event took place on December 23, 2025, in My Dinh, Tu Liem District, Hanoi.

TH (Tuoitrethudo)