All seven finalists for the 2027 European Car of the Year are fully electric, a first in the award’s 63-year history, and none of them comes from a Chinese brand. The finalists are the BMW iX3, Cupra Raval, Hyundai Ioniq 3, Kia EV2, Renault Twingo, Volkswagen ID.Polo and Volvo EX60. A jury of 65 judges from 25 countries trimmed a list of 38 contenders to get there. No combustion or hybrid car remains in contention.
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Chinese automakers account for about one in 10 cars sold in Europe, so the absence is notable even though several of their models were on the long list at the start. The share is the figure Carscoops uses to frame the story, and it sets up an awkward contrast between the market and the podium that the jury will eventually choose from.
The seven finalists and the car they must replace
The Car of the Year organizers list the seven alphabetically and describe them as all 100 percent electric vehicles. They are competing to succeed the Mercedes-Benz CLA, which took the 2026 award on January 12 as only the second Mercedes-Benz winner in the contest’s history, after the 450 SE in 1974.
Carscoops calls the BMW the Neue Klasse iX3, the same family as the performance variant it covered in its report on the iX3 M60 and its 603 hp. Renault’s Twingo is a small city car with a 27.5 kWh LFP battery, 163 miles of WLTP range and a target price below 20,000 pounds, according to Carscoops, which earlier described its arrival as bad news for Volkswagen.
The BMW iX3 M60 variant, covered by Carscoops, makes 603 hp and 645 lb-ft from a 112.2 kWh battery with motors on both axles, reaches 62 mph in 3.9 seconds and supports DC fast charging up to 400 kW. BMW has confirmed that U.S. orders open at the end of January.
The award itself has a long record. Its list of winners begins with the Rover P6 2000 in 1964, and every winner for decades afterward ran on petrol or diesel. The organizers’ site also reports that the pre-selection test event covered 85 vehicles, 35 models and 24 brands, which gives a sense of how many cars were considered before the field narrowed to 38 and then to seven. A shortlist made entirely of electric cars therefore marks a break with six decades of precedent rather than a gradual drift.
Chinese entries that did not survive the cut
Carscoops reports that the first list of 38 included Chinese electric and hybrid models. It names the BYD Dolphin G, Denza Z9GT, the Leapmotor-built B05 and B03X from the Stellantis joint venture, the MG IM5, the MG4 Urban and the MGS6. Its text counts eight Chinese entries but names seven, so the exact tally is uncertain.
The nearest the shortlist comes to a Chinese connection is the Volvo EX60, the one finalist whose parent company sits in China. Volvo is owned by the Chinese group Geely, but the EX60 is built at Torslanda in Sweden, so the car is not a product of Chinese factories.
The size of the CLA’s win last year gives a sense of how the contest plays out. It collected first-place rankings from 22 judges, against 15 for the Citroen C5 Aircross, and finished 100 points clear of the runner-up, which means a car does not need a majority of top rankings to prevail under the 25-point system.
Balocco testing, a 25-point ballot and the 8 January result
Judges will test the finalists on November 25 and 26 at the Balocco circuit in Italy, the Stellantis proving ground near Milan. Voting then runs until December 31. Each juror distributes 25 points among the finalists, with a maximum of 10 points to any one car in a single round, so that a juror cannot put all the weight behind one favorite, and the winner will be announced on January 8 at the Brussels Motor Show.
Neither the organizers’ announcement nor Carscoops quotes an individual juror, so the reasoning behind particular exclusions is not on the record. Which of the seven the jurors favor will stay unknown until that January announcement, and the points system rewards a broad appeal across many ballots rather than a single enthusiastic bloc.
Whether a Chinese brand can reach the final stage in a later year remains open. Last year the Mercedes-Benz CLA won with 320 points from a jury of 59 journalists in 23 countries, ahead of the Skoda Elroq on 220 and the Kia EV4 on 208, so this year’s panel is larger by six judges and two countries. The 2027 list shows that at least seven Chinese-linked entries reached the long list of 38 and none reached the final seven.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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