The adage “May you live in interesting times” is both a a blessing and a curse. And its two-sides-of-the-coin quality rests on that key word, “interesting.” Not its simple meaning—like, it’s interesting to watch the Ken Burns’ documentary The War. Rather, it’s interesting like World War II itself—a global trauma that both tested civilization’s fabric and forged the greatest generation. Interesting times make for remarkable, jolting changes.
On a small scale, these past few years have been interesting times for the
car, too. SUVs and crossovers are gobbling up car sales. Stiffening regulatory demands for better fuel economy are resulting in alien new power sources under their hoods—technologies unfathomable a few years back. And the developmental pace of semi-autonomous features are starting the slow process of disconnecting us from traditional 100 percent human control. It’s a slippery slope that ends in a pile of questions that begs the meaning of what is to be an automobile. Our old friends the sedan, the coupe, the station wagon, and the minivan—the familiar car variants that our mom and dad and their moms and dads had no trouble defining—are in the midst of a major identity crisis.
In response, lithium-ion batteries provide the sole power for a record four of our contenders (the Tesla Model 3, the Nissan Leaf, the Hyundai Ioniq EV, and the Smart Fortwo ED). The Model 3 and Leaf also offer startlingly progressive adaptive cruise control and lane-centering technologies. Then there are the hybrid Hyundai Ioniq and Kia Niro, plus the Prius Prime hybrid, which adds extra plug-in range. And several automakers have uncorked their design departments to shed their boring, steady-as-she-goes mantra—witness the retail giants Honda Accord and Toyota Camry and their go-for-it, attack-mode styling.
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That’s not to ignore the experimentation expressed elsewhere in our field of 26 models and 46 variations. There are the brain-boggling family features of the new Honda Odyssey, the cool performance-wagon interpretations from Audi and Mercedes-Benz, the sexy Alfa Romeo Giulia, the straight-off-the-autoshow-turntable Lexus LC, and the point-me-to-a-racetrack Civic Type R. Everywhere, explorations in the redefinition of the car.
The petri dish for all this mutation is a circle with its epicenter at Mojave, California. To its east is Hyundai’s test facility where—over seven days—our closed-course testing and subjective studies narrow the field to our eight finalists. Then we decamp to Tehachapi, west of Mojave, where over two more days, our 27-mile real-world loop funnels our hopefuls down to one. Every step of the way we remind ourselves of our competition’s six foundational criteria: Advancement in Design, Engineering Excellence, Performance of Intended Function, Efficiency, Safety, and Value.
But all rules are open to interpretation. One judge feels this car is a great value; another disagrees. Two judges gang up on another who views a certain car as a design advancement. “But it’s ugly!” “Are you sitting on your eyes?” Slowly some of us wish we could relocate from our original seat around the table where the debates rage on and on. But ultimately, editor-in-chief Ed Loh passes out small pieces of paper for us to submit our top three picks. He leaves the room for tabulation and returns with a surprised look and declares the winner. A quiet “Yes!” is exhaled by a few in the room. A few others drop their heads. But that’s democracy.
We’re living in interesting automotive times, and the Motor Trend Car of the Year competition gives all of us a ringside seat.
Picking the Motor Trend Car of the Year is a sprawling, complicated process. And as most of us are generalist automotive writers, the program has come to incorporate some expert insights in the form of our two guest judges, Tom Gale (design; for example, the Dodge Viper) and Chris Theodore (engineering; the original Ford GT).
For instance, first thing on one of the days, Tom arranges all of the cars into groups on the asphalt expanse of the Hyundai facility’s vehicle dynamics area, angling them such that the sunrise caresses their flanks just so. Group by group, he talks us through their surfacing (and explains what a “horizon line” means). This fascinating chat ought to be worth a few class credits at the ArtCenter School of Design. Meanwhile, Chris is popping open hoods or pointing out the manufacturing challenges in making body panels.
But on the days leading up to this, the VDA is the domain of three vehicle dynamics specialists: road test editor Chris Walton, associate road test editor Erick Ayapana, and me. To begin, Ayapana coordinates the check-in process: documenting vehicle-loan logistics, torqueing lug nuts, adjusting tire pressures, and weighing every one of 46 vehicle variants we were to test. All told, we faced 920 lug nuts and 184 tire pressure checks.
Once the cars are processed, Chris and I head to the VDA to share figure-eight duties, obtaining lap times and maximum lateral accelerations. On the nearby straight stability area, Walton and Ayapana run all the acceleration and braking tests. That comes to 184 quarter-mile runs and brake stops and 276 figure-eight laps (that’s 82 miles worth of figure eights).
Like Gale’s judgments on design and Theodore’s on engineering, this enormous testing regimen offers a focused quantification of each vehicle’s dynamic differences. It’s a comparative baseline for the rest of the judges as they later spread out onto the facility’s high-speed oval (to check stability and wind noise), winding road handling course, various dedicated ride-quality surfaces, and then our all-encompassing real-world loops in nearby Tehachapi.
Once the track testing was complete and our finalists decided, we took 11 cars forward to tackle the real-world road loop in Tehachapi, California. This 27.6-mile mix of highway, city, and tight canyon roads starts in Tehachapi before climbing a mountain pass. The route snakes back toward State Route 58 via a two-lane country road. Judges pay attention to road and wind noise, steering response, and ride quality. They also test audio, climate, and driver-assistance systems.
1. Tehachapi Boulevard
Low-speed stop-start driving tests transmission calibration, throttle and brake tip-in, low-speed ride, and visibility.
2. Tehachapi–Willow Springs Road
Broken pavement tests tire noise suppression and whether NVH is transmitted into the body structure.
3. Tehachapi–Willow Springs Road summit
A sustained climb tests torque and transmission response; a sustained descent tests cruise-control effectiveness.
4. Cameron Road
A canyon road with mid-corner elevation changes induces major transient loads, ideal for testing steering, chassis balance, and body control.
5. Rail Crossing 1
A sharp bump at 10 mph tests the suspension effectiveness.
6. Freeway
Patched and broken concrete induces tire noise and high-frequency vibrations. Smooth asphalt tests ride quality in a commuting situation. The freeway stretch also allows for testing of cruise control, passive and active safety systems, semi-autonomous driving, and passing power.
7. Rail Crossing 2
An angled crossing induces twisting loads for a good assessment of chassis rigidity.
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