The Indian Car of the Year (ICOTY) 2025 was announced at a glitzy and fun-filled award ceremony in Delhi on January 10, 2025.  The big winners were the Mahindra Thar Roxx, which won the prestigious and highly coveted Indian Car of the Year Award. The highly capable and appreciable Mercedes-Benz E-Class was declared the Premium Car of the Year by ICOTY and the MG Windsor, the Green Car of the Year.

In one of the closest contests experienced by the ICOTY Jury yet, the Mahindra Thar Roxx emerged the winner with 139 points and the runner up was the Maruti Suzuki Dzire with a score of 137, just 2 points behind. The Maruti Suzuki Swift clinched the third spot with 83 points. The other contenders that made it to the final jury round included the BYD eMAX 7, the Citroen Basalt, the MG Windsor, the Tata Curvv, the Tata Curvv EV, and the Tata Punch EV. Interestingly, there were quite a few EVs competing not just in the Green Car category, but also the Indian Car of the Year award. This is a significant difference from earlier times and possibly an indication of the changing trends and growth of electric vehicles.

As mentioned before, the Premium Car of the Year was won by the Mercedes-Benz E-Class (140 points), followed by the BMW 5 Series (107 points) and Kia Carnival (65 points) in third place. The list of competitors for this award were quite a mix, comprising the, BMW i5, the BMW M5, the BYD Seal, the Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV, the Mercedes-Maybach EQS SUV, and the Mini Cooper S. A field of truly impressive and highly varied vehicles.

With passage of time, the Green Car award is gaining in popularity and the number of contenders is also increasing every year. This time the MG Windsor (157 points) was the winner, with the runner up being the BMW i5 (99 points) and the BYD Seal (87 points) rounding off the podium. There were many contenders for this Green Car Crown and included  the BYD eMAX 7, the Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV, the Mercedes-Maybach EQS SUV, the Mini Countryman EV, the Tata Curvv EV, and the Tata Punch EV.

As always, some of the senior-most and highly-experienced journalists from top India automotive publications and online portals were part of the Jury of the ICOTY, which has emerged as the most honest and desired auto awards and is now considered the ‘Oscar’ of Indian automotive awards. This award is an expert and independent judgment of the best new car and the award has been getting increasingly prominent with each passing year. JK Tyre has been sponsoring the award ceremony of the ICOTY ever since its inception and this year too, it was Dr. Raghupati Singhania, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of JK Tyre and Industries Ltd. who graced the occasion and gave away the awards, along with the members of the ICOTY 2025 Jury.

The ICOTY 2025 also had the maximum number of Jury Members till date, and this included Dhruv Behl and Ishan Raghava of autoX, Yogendra Pratap and Dipayan Dutta from Auto Today, Aspi Bhathena  and Joshua Varghese Car India, Sirish Chandran and Aatish Mishra Evo India, Pablo Chaterji and Kartik Ware Motoring World, Kranti Sambhav and Rohit Paradkar  Overdrive, Vikrant Singh and Sagar Bhanushali Carwale, Abhay Verma Turbocharged, Cyrus Dhabhar Powerdrift, Bob Rupani, Arpit Mahendra fromTimes Auto, Ameya Dandekar from Cardekho/Zigwheels, Kushan-Mitra of The Print, and Ashish Masih from Times Drive.

This specialist jury consisting of some very knowledgeable and experienced Indian automotive journalists is easily the best in the business, and cumulatively they have almost 400 years of car evaluation expertise. The jury is known for their analytical skills and competence in evaluating and testing cars, as a part of their profession. The highly experienced jury members are responsible for selecting the winners and the voting process has been designed to be very fair and unbiased and tamper proof. Thanks to all this, the ICOTY trophy is the one every manufacture wants to win. The ICOTY award is in line with international standards and modeled on the American Car of the Year, European Car of the Year and Japanese Car of the Year. The eligible vehicles are judged on various parameters such as price, fuel efficiency, styling, comfort, safety, features, performance, practicality, technical innovation, value for money and above all suitability for Indian consumers and driving conditions.