How ICOTY picks the Indian Car of the Year: the 25-point ballot and which cars cannot enter

The short answer: the Indian Car of the Year is decided by a secret points ballot, not by a committee argument. Every juror on the panel gets 25 points. They must spread those points over at least five of the shortlisted cars, no single car can take more than 10 points from one juror, and the top two cars on a juror's ballot cannot be given the same score. That last rule exists so that every ballot names one clear favourite. The points are added up and the car with the highest total wins.

ICOTY is run by the Automotive Journalists of India, or AJAI, and presented with JK Tyre. The official ICOTY site describes the jury as 23 automotive journalists drawn from named outlets, including Autocar's rivals and partners alike: Auto Today, autoX, Bike India and BikeWale, Car India, CarDekho, CarWale, evo India, Motoring World, Overdrive, The Print, TOI Auto and Turbo Charged. The car award began in 2005 and the 2026 edition was its 21st. Indian Motorcycle of the Year, IMOTY, started in 2007 and uses the same jury body.

The eligibility rules that decide the shortlist before anyone votes

This is the part owners argue about most, and it is written down. A contender has to be a genuinely new model. A facelift or a small mechanical update does not qualify. It must be manufactured or assembled in India. It must be homologated for Indian type approval and on sale in showrooms before 30 November of the preceding year. Cars imported as completely built units are not considered for the main award.

So a Tesla Model Y or a Ferrari cannot be Indian Car of the Year, however good it is, because nobody screws it together here. The separate category awards work to their own lists. For the 2026 cycle, CarWale reported that the Green Car shortlist included the BYD Sealion 7 and the Tesla Model Y alongside the Hyundai Creta Electric, which tells you the categories are not policed identically to the main prize.

What the 2026 result looked like, and whether the winner deserved it

The 2026 ICOTY went to the Maruti Victoris with 144 points, ahead of the Skoda Kylaq on 90 and the Mahindra XEV 9e on 71, from a shortlist of eight that also had the Hyundai Venue, Hyundai Creta Electric, Kia Syros, Kia Carens Clavis EV and Tata Harrier EV. The Green Car award went to the XEV 9e with 135 points and the Premium Car award to the Volkswagen Golf GTI with 123. IMOTY went to the TVS Apache RTX.

A 54-point gap over second place is not a close vote, and it says something about how the ballot behaves. A mid-size SUV that a lot of people can actually buy collects points from almost every juror. A sharper, narrower car collects 10 points from a few jurors and nothing from the rest. The system rewards breadth, so it tends to crown the sensible all-rounder. That is a design choice, not a flaw, and it is worth remembering before you call a result boring.

How this compares with the European and World awards

European Car of the Year uses the identical ballot, 25 points over at least five cars with a maximum of 10 for the first choice, voted by a jury of 65 members from 25 European countries for 2027. It publishes a long list on 28 October, a short list of seven on 30 October, holds common test days in early December and closes voting on 29 December. Every juror's votes are shown country by country at the Brussels motor show.

The World Car Awards take a different route, with around 100 international jurors and eligibility set by production volume and market spread. A car must be on sale in at least two major markets on separate continents, and the main award needs a minimum of 10,000 units a year, against 5,000 for Urban Car and Luxury Car and 1,000 for Performance Car.

For an Indian reader, the practical takeaway is simple. An ICOTY badge means a panel of working road testers, each filing a scored ballot with reasons, put that car top of a field of India-built new models. It is not a popularity poll, and it is not a sales trophy.

Sources

• ICOTY and IMOTY official site, JK Tyre
• Indian Car of the Year, About Us: voting system and eligibility
• Car India: ICOTY 2026, Maruti Suzuki Victoris takes top honours
• CarWale: 2026 ICOTY jury round kicks off
• European Car of the Year: how the election works
• World Car Awards 2027 eligibility criteria