World Green Car of the Year Nominees Announced

The World Car of the Year committee recently announced the 22 nominees for World Green Car of the Year.

Unique Outlook

Unlike other car of the year awards, the World Car of the Year and World Green Car of the Year awards are much more international in scope. To give you an idea, the 2009 jury for the awards consists of 58 automotive journalists from 25 countries.

Because WCOTY is not regional, the award is, according to the committee, “intended to complement, not compete with those existing national and regional COTY awards, which are inherently different in scope.” Due to the broad scope of the award, there will always be vehicles on the list that are unavailable in certain regions and countries.

The WCOTY awards were first given out in 2005 and are administered by a non-profit corporation and the guidance of a steering committee of journalists from Asia, Europe and North America. Jurors are appointed for terms of from one to three years and represent one of the three regions.

2009 Nominated Vehicles

In order to qualify, a vehicle must be on sale in a minimum of five countries spread over at least two or more continents before January 1, 2009.The following vehicles have been nominated for 2009:

Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid

Audi Q7 3.0 TDI

BMW 335d BluePerformance

Chevrolet Tahoe / GMC Yukon Hybrid

Citroën C1

Fiat Palio Weekend Electric

Fiat Siena Tetrafuel model

Honda FCX Clarity

Mazda Hydrogen Rotary RX8

MINI E

Mercedes-Benz ML/R/GL 320 BlueTEC

MINI Cooper D

Tesla Electric Roadster

2009 Citroen C1

Toyota iQ

Volvo V70 2.5 FT (Flexifuel)

Audi Q7 TDI

The Bottom Line

Unlike other awards, the WCOTY is truly international in scope. With the high price of gasoline this past summer and the certainty that gas will not stay below $3.00 per gallon for long, it is with more than a little interest that we take a look at not only the fuel misers available in the U.S. now, but what the rest of the world is looking at as well.

Tags: audi, BMW, Chevrolet, citroen, fiat, gmc, Honda, mazda, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, mitsubishi, Nissan, smart, subaru, tesla, Toyota, Volvo, wcoty, world green car