THE BEST Luxury cars, and the safest cars, of the year
COTY continues with the finalists in our last two categories
We’re continuing to reveal the finalists in the AA DRIVEN New Zealand Car of the Year awards for 2022 — and rapidly getting towards the big reveal of the class winners and overall victor.
In fact, these are our last categories before we reveal all next week: Luxury and AA Safest Car.
Luxury
Luxury vehicles are all about refinement, ambience, the latest technology . . . and a feeling of being very special.
The BMW iX represents the German maker’s vision for the future of its battery electric vehicles (BEVs), including a bold (some might say outrageous) new look that’s already starting to filter through to smaller models like the X1. We’ve been wowed by the iX’s presence, state-of-the-art technology and clean-sheet approach to luxury motoring.
The Lexus NX is technically a medium-sized SUV, but it fulfils the luxury brief perfectly by way of the virtues and character we’ve come to expect from Toyota’s luxury arm. It looks distinctive, the build quality puts many super-luxury brands to shame and the new range gives buyers greater ecopowertrain choice, with a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) flagship version now available alongside the brand’s proven hybrid electrified vehicle (HEV) technology.
The Mercedes-AMG EQS 53 is another hugely significant and impressive BEV. It follows the EQC, EQA and EQB SUVs, but it is in fact built on the brand’s first bespoke BEV platform. Introduced only in sporty AMG form to NZ for now (other versions are coming), the EQS boasts other-worldly looks, a level of specification equivalent to the conventional S-Class sedan and some incredible new technology, like the dashboard Hyperscreen that stretches the entire width of the cabin and gives the front-seat passenger their own infotainment menus and controls.
AA Safest Car
The AA Safest Car award stands apart from the rest in the AA DRIVEN Car of the Year. While the other vehicle categories are judged by our panel, the AA Safest Car award comes from Australasian New Car Assessment Programme (ANCAP) data.
Not that we ignore metrics when it comes to the other categories of course, but when it comes to safety it’s pure numbers: the vehicle that performs best against ANCAP barriers and safety metrics, accumulating the most points, is the winner. The results are collated by the expert team at the AA.
So which new models are in the frame? In alphabetical order, first comes a familiar vehicle . . . from earlier on this page! The Lexus NX is a finalist in the Luxury category above, but it’s also in the running for the Safety award. It’s a measure of how advanced the NX’s new platform is, and how comprehensive the new safety technology package has become.
Mercedes-Benz is renowned for its state-of-the-art safety and the new C-Class maintains the tradition. It’s been launched as a sedan in New Zealand, but the allnew model scores higher than any of the brand’s current SUVs — an impressive achievement. It’s also the second Mercedes among our COTY finalists, following the EQS 53 in the Luxury category.
Our top three is completed by a brand that many might not immediately associate with high ANCAP scores: Tesla’s Model Y
. Tesla is known for its high tech and for different priorities to more established makers, but the fact the new Model Y SUV scores so highly in this industry-standard testing programme underlines that it’s truly a force to be reckoned with compared to “legacy” (as Tesla fans love to call them!) brands.