Announcing OneShift Car Of The Year 2022!

OneShift Car Of The Year is an institution that has been running annually since 2008.

We are proud to have been able to help new car buyers make informed decisions about their purchases. This year, we're doing things differently so that you can have an even better handle of the best cars out there in the market today.

We are narrowing down to just these main categories:

Best Internal Combustion Engine Car Of 2022
Best Hybrid Car Of 2022
Best Electric Car Of 2022

Only cars that have been launched in 2022 and were test driven by us will be considered. Each category will have a Gold, Silver and Bronze winner.

The three Gold winners then move on to a final test where we will thereafter crown the overall OneShift Car Of The Year 2022. In this hotly-contested finale, we will pick the best car based on merit and not by their drivetrain types.

We feel the poignant shift towards electrification and these categories reflect this. Over time we would expect to see the 'ICE' category shrinking while the other two increasing. Nonetheless, all categories are important and will remain so. For clarity, mild hybrids, which have been increasingly becoming common, will be considered in the 'ICE' category.

We will also reward cars that were the best performing in each factor we rated them on. These factors were carefully chosen to assess the most important characteristics of a car, which are as comprehensive as they are rigorous, namely:

Handling: how it feels down a good road

Comfort: how compliant it rides

Performance: how thrilling it is

Interior: how's it like on the inside

Practicality: how useful it is

Build quality: how well-built it is

Features: how useful and plentiful are they

Value: how value for money it is

Sustainability: how are its sustainability credentials

Ergonomics: how well is it designed

Therefore, there will be cars that will take home the prizes of:

Best Handling
Best Comfort
Best Performance
Best Interior
Best Practicality
Best Build Quality
Best Features
Best Value
Best Sustainability
Best Ergonomics

There will only be one winner per prize.

It is important to note that we have rated the cars based on how they performed against their segment, rather than their performance outright. For example, a sports car may not always top Performance, if there is a luxury saloon that manages to outperform anything else in its segment to a large degree. Here are the rubrics that the jury are following to score the contenders:

Best-in-class. Very distinctly the leader in its respective segment.

Above average; some delightful aspects that elevate it above the norm. Those in the higher bands approach an excellent rating.

Meets expectations. It is benchmarked to what is expected for its class, but not much more.

Catching up to its peers in its class. Nearly meets expectations.

That's all, folks. We hope you will enjoy this new format. Do look forward to seeing the results in the coming weeks!