► Renault 5 wins 2025’s ECotY award
► Voting from 60 jurors and 23 countries
► Second win in a row for Renault
2025’s European Car of the Year has been announced: the Renault 5 and Alpine A290. This year’s European Car of the Year award was announced at the 2025 Brussels motor show.
The pair of French electric cars have won the award as one, given their shared architecture and technology. Fabrice Cambolive, brand CEO for Renault, and Philippe Krief, brand CEO for Alpine both collected the award at the Brussels show. ‘We needed this to break the glass ceiling of EV adoption,’ says Cambolive during the awards ceremony.
2025’s contenders were, in order, the Alfa Romeo Junior, Citroen C3/e-C3, Cupra Terramar, Dacia Duster, Hyundai Inster, Kia EV3 and Renault 5/Alpine A290 (which are being treated as a pair given their structural similarities).
That was whittled down from a total of 42 contenders, which were all tested in September 2024 at the Tannistest centre in Denmark. A total of 60 jurors from 23 countries converged on the centre to test all of the entrants, with the final seven being chosen.
Every juror gets a total of 25 points to award across all the finalist cars. Running through each country’s votes in the live broadcast, almost like the Eurovision results, the Renault 5/Alpine A290 grabbed an early lead and stayed there.
The total results are as follows:
Renault 5/Alpine A290: 353 points
Kia EV3: 291 points
Citroen C3/e-C3: 215 points
Dacia Duster: 172 points
Hyundai Inster: 168 points
Cupra Terramar: 165 points
Alfa Romeo Junior: 136 points
Last year’s winner was the Renault Scenic, marking only the second time in the ECotY award’s 60+ year history that a brand has won it twice on the bounce. The only other time was the Fiat Punto in 1995, followed by the Fiat Bravo in 1996.