Dacia Duster wins “AUTOBEST 2011”
Nissan LEAF elected “ECOBEST 2010”
Dacia Duster was voted “AUTOBEST 2011”. With a total of 863 points, the winner overtook with only 41 points Opel Meriva – 822 points and Renault Fluence coming third, with a total of 717 points. Citroen C3 came on 4-th with 654 points followed by KIA Venga with 544 points. No less than 10 members of the Jury voted Duster as the winner, other 4 gave the first place to Meriva and one for Fluance. (for detailed results, see Final Ranking in www.autobest.org )
A fair assessment between winners cannot be done just by comparing the points. Six years ago, only 12 members were in the AUTOBEST Jury. For this edition, there are 15 motoring journalists. Some years ago we introduced a new index for a fair comparison: average percentage of points granted by the Jury members for a car out of the total number of points. In 2006, the winning KIA Rio managed to take an average of 24,5% out of the total available number of points. A year after the biggest index was reached, Opel Corsa won with 25% points out of the maximum points. A year after, Fiat Linea won with 23,5% and last year Renault Symbol collected an index of 24,4% of the available points. Chevy Cruze was very close with Symbol collecting 23,4 % of the available points, the smallest in the last 5 years. At this edition, Dacia Duster managed an index of 24%, in the middle of the AUTOBEST award history in terms of performance.
“Duster is now representing the best buy car in the Autobest region, if not in the whole Europe. The AUTOBEST Jury was just confirming this status of Duster, which is becoming very successful almost everywhere in Europe. But was a very tough competition, notably Opel Meriva proved to be a very strong competitor. ”, Mr. Ilia Seliktar, AUTOBEST President, stated.
Nissan LEAF was voted “ECOBEST 2010”. “LEAF was just the logical choice for ECOBEST award. It is the first intelligent Electric Vehicle able to drive with zero emission up to a homologated 175 km range. ECOBEST award was the first in Europe to prize the eco–achievements of the car industry in Europe. After 10 years, we are proud to receive appreciation from the entire auto industry which appreciate our award as the most established and relevant in the field of environmentally friendly cars” Ilia Seliktar declared.
AUTOBEST among emerging markets organization appointed a new member to represent Serbia. Mladen Alvirovic is a well known motoring writer in his country. He is the Co-founder of SAT Media Group, leading Serbian automotive publishing and TV production company.
In electing the AUTOBEST car winner, the Jury made its decision taking into consideration 13 criteria, each of them counting a specific number of points that reflect a different importance in the final vote of each car. The price, with 60 points out of a total of 240 available to be distributed among the finalists, is the most important. Other sensitive issues for the region, like distribution network, service and spare parts availability, consumption, versatility and boot capacity, count for 20 points each. All of these specific criteria for the customers in emerging countries totalize more than a half of the total number of points. Other issues, common for all European countries, like new technologies, handling, dynamics, environmental friendly, are less important. The design, evaluated with 30 points maximum, becomes more and more important for the clients in emerging countries.
The 10-th edition of AUTOBEST AWARDS FESTIVITY will take place at the beginning of February 2011 in Romania. Following the tradition, AUTOBEST International Jury grants the awards in different country every year. Last year, the awards festivity was held in Moscow, Russia. Besides the AUTOBEST winners, in Romania are also invited important people and decision-makers from the automotive industry in Romania and Europe as well, politicians, stars, sports people and well-known personalities.
AUTOBEST Jury thanks the readers from the region for encouraging the project and the PR responsible in the automotive industry for providing all the support in organizing meetings and drive tests of the new products.
AUTOBEST is the second largest independent motoring Jury in Europe.
