Autumn is always a crazy time of the year, especially if you’re north of the border. From Canadian Thanksgiving to the winterization of fun cars to trying to work off Thanksgiving dinner, things get a little bit busy. For me, they’re only getting busier. This week, I’ve had exactly one normal behind-the-laptop day before jumping into one of my favourite yearly extracurriculars, the Automobile Journalist Association of Canada’s TestFest for Canadian Car of the Year.
Every autumn, carriers of vehicles and cars full of journalists descend on a rural location as part of the pursuit of crowning the best car, utility vehicle, electric car, and electric utility vehicle in the land. While all new cars are eligible for the awards, TestFest is a great way to get a whole bunch of seat time in one go, and automakers are known to bring out a surprise or two every so often.
This year’s crop of vehicles looks fantastic, with everything from the affordable Hyundai Elantra Hybrid on the way up to stuff like the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo GTS, the Hyundai Ioniq 9, and—hopefully—the Lucid Gravity. Oh, and several other cars I may or may not be allowed to talk about yet. As you’d probably expect, the field skews crossover-heavy as that’s the way the market’s going, but it’s a fun way to back-to-back some of the most desirable new cars at all sorts of price brackets.
It goes without saying that most Car of the Year awards are somewhat opaque, and you can’t weight them all equally given how criteria varies so wildly from judging body to judging body. However, I want to take the time to demystify Canadian Car of the Year for everyone, give you a little peek behind the curtain as to how the sausage is made, from judging to the rollout of finalists and winners.
So, without further ado, I open the floor to you. Ask me literally anything about any of the vehicles I’m about to drive, about the judging criteria, about all of it, and I’ll try to answer to the best of my abilities.
Top graphic image: Thomas Hundal
IF the Elantra Hybrid has the 1.6 Smartstream Turbo + 6speed Auto setup – can you please please PLEASE check whether it has the atrocious “exhaust shield meets dry beans rattling in a can” rattle noise between 3k and 4k rpm, only when moving ?
Engine has to be at least a little bit warm, car can rev while stopped (you’d have to rev it in P, as in N the engine shuts down with it being Hybrid and all) without noise, so it’s not the engine, OR it’s not something that the engine uses while idling, but BOY does it rattle awfully while driving.
Have this on my new Sportage, it’s disturbing. Dealer first said it’s normal – of course, then that it’s normal and that it happens when the electric motor helps the engine, which happens up to 90mph – which I don’t buy. But well.
Didn’t notice a rattle at any RPM when moving, although the Elantra Hybrid’s a bit different from the CUV setup since it pairs a naturally aspirated 1.6 with a DCT. Then again, I haven’t noticed that described rattle in any Hyundai/Kia 1.6T hybrid product I’ve driven, so go down there to the service department and raise a little well-spoken hell.
Thanks. The thing is documented on forums, I was wondering if it shows on all.
How many cup holders does each car have?
I strongly believe that every new car available in Canada should have a heated steering wheel as a standalone option, for $500 or so.
It would be a game changer for people with cheaper vehicles, because they’re the ones getting up in the middle of the night to clear snow and shovel the driveway, so they can commute 2 hours to work in gridlock traffic, then work a 12 hour shift to round out the 60 hour work week.
Standalone option would be great. I’m deeply tempted to retrofit a heated steering wheel on my 335i since pre-facelift cars never came with one IIRC.
Do they run on factory tires, or is there a set of winter tires in case it’s cold?
Factory tires! It’s usually warm enough in October for summers, plus the OEM-spec tires are the best for evaluating vehicles as many people will actually buy them.
Can you actually operate anything with gloves on? Please tell me everything isn’t touchscreen.
There are a few cars on hand that are exceptionally glove-friendly. Off the top of my head, the Hyundai Elantra Hybrid, and Mazda CX-90 and CX-70 are the best here at the whole physical controls thing. The Genesis models are pretty good too, what with their HVAC switches, volume and tuning knobs, and rotary controllers.
Wranglers have a full complement of buttons, switches and knobs for HVAC and infotainment, including the hidden buttons on the back of the steering wheel. I don’t know if this carries over to other models.
Things to know:
Which manufacturer provided the most interesting bit of swag for the journalists?
Cargo capacity of all CUV’s needs to be listed in units of Canadian Bacon.
How many of the journalists do not know how to drive a manual transmission equipped vehicle?
-No manufacturer swag, but Continental’s handing out stuffed animals.
-Oooh, I’ll have to measure a pack of peameal bacon when I’m shopping later this week.
-I believe everyone here can drive a car with a manual transmission, although this is the first year in memory that there are no stick-shift cars at TestFest.
That last sentence makes me a bit sad. And it’s been (checks calendar) 24 years since I have bought a stick. So, I am part of the problem. I guess.
What will people North of the border be able to buy that we can’t down here (USA)?
I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that ’86 Accords had cooler European style headlamps up there that we were denied down here. Yes. We had pop-up headlights and mine were trouble-free, but I thought the non-US spec ones looked better. Probably worked better than sealed beams too.
I went to Canada a lot for work, and I loved it, but my worst day was Canadian Thanksgiving in Edmonton back in 2006. The only restaurant I could find that was open was a Hy’s Steakhouse. I was the only one there and the staff seemed really annoyed that I showed up. I looked on Google Maps and it’s apparently not there anymore. Wonder why.
I have had great meals at other Hy’s. So, I’m not disparaging the chain. Just that one.
The Kia PV5 electric van will be coming to Canada relatively soon, and I’m going to try my hardest to get my hands on it for Vantopian purposes.
Thanks for the reply. If it’s crappy, which it probably won’t be, make sure Adrian has to spend time in it.
And every time I see your name, my slightly scrambled brain sees Hyundai.
Sorry. I do enjoy reading your writing.
How comfortable is the tree with gold?
Can you please provide the fullest list possible so we can inquire as to specifics about the specific vehicles you will be driving?
Why are you and every other automotive journalist going to give German cars a press pass when it comes to their terrible build quality and especially their god awful reliability?
Which one holds the greatest number of extra-large double-doubles?
He’s a Canadian in Canada, I think the more relevant question is how many 20 packs of Tim’s Bits can they carry.
If you’re going for quantity, I’d have to think 50 packs would be more efficient!
We can do both! Mine was a cupholder-related question while yours speaks to overall cargo capacity.
These are important pieces of consumer advice 🙂
Absolutely, both are very important when choosing a vehicle.
It looks like you are testing now. Being a Canadian car of the year, how can you rank it’s most important skills like winter handling and thermal management? Some vehicles these days have pretty wimpy heaters, and some get heat flowing far sooner than others. I need to know if this is gonna leave me a popsicle on a 15 minute drive in -30(real thermal units, Yankees), without needing to do the Alberta idle, or worse, resort to a Saskatchewan thermostat.
A girl I knew once gave me a Saskatchewan Thermostat. Needless to say, that was the last date.
Little frigid?
I am afraid to look this up on urbandictionary.com.
Honestly a very relevant yet pretty underreported thing.
One of the major reasons I settled on my Leaf for my first new car is that where I am currently I have no garage and it gets into the negatives (F°) during the winter, so the otherwise hot running Leaf handles the frigid temps quite well.
However the front defroster is not that great, though I’ve never seen a forced air defroster I’d describe as “great”.
They would have been much better off making the windshield electrically heated just like how the rear window is, and frankly all cars should have an electrically heated windshield. Press one button and less than 30 seconds later the whole windshield is defogged, doesn’t matter how cold the engine, battery, or motor(s) are, it just works.
My 2001 Jetta TDI’s heater took forever to produce warm air, but it had great heated seats, so I didn’t mind too much.
That’s a great question, and part of the reason why I mostly book press cars in the winter. At this time of year, it’s a bit difficult to assess snow handling, but an ineffective heater and poor snow handling are valid reasons for voting journalists to dock points on ballots.
Will the ADAS allow me to eat poutine on the 407?
does Canada do it’s own crash testing? does it involve crashing into a moose?
Funnily enough the Swedes do have a crash test (or really crash avoidance test) called the “Moose Test” where they swerve sharply at high speeds – as if one were avoiding a moose – to see if the car topples.
Yeah. Some interesting videos exist of those tests.
But it’s no joke. Moose are very spindly and top-heavy animals. I lived in Rochester, NY for a year and two people were killed driving on roads within the city limits hitting deer while I was there. One came through the windshield. The other dented a fender into the front left tire which led it to being involved in a head-on collision on a two-lane road with a dump truck.
Those tests are somewhat unrealistic compared to real life as often when you encounter an animal on the roadway, you don’t always have another lane to swerve around it.
i’m aware of the “moose” test. its done by a magazine. In my opinion its not that great of a test because there is too much variability and subjectivity to the test. it’ still fun for entertainment purposes. But in all seriousness just because the magazine was able to get a wheel to lift off the ground that doesn’t mean it would practically ever happen in the real world. Also it’s still recommended that you brake hard and just take the crash into the animal or possibly steer behind it to avoid risking crashing into another vehicle or risking going off the road.
Two nights ago, our FD responded to a moose vs Kia Sportage about a mile from the hall. Minor injuries to the four passengers, but the Kia is K.I.A. They are lucky that they were going a reasonable speed. Out of the 50-75 responses we do over year, at least a half dozen of them are car vs.moose. They are no joke…
yeah i feel bad for making light of a serious thing but perhaps there is SOMETHING that could make cars more safer for a collision like that. maybe it would be a good idea to standardize a test for something like that. deploy able windshield braces or airbags in the outside of the windshield .. something. maybe mandating occupants survive a collision like that could lead to some innovation but maybe it leads to everyone being forced to drive a bulldozer to work.
No worries bud! I’ve been doing it for thirty years, responded to literally dozens and dozens of these calls. I’m pretty hardened, lol! Amazingly, several of them involved motorcycles, and none of them were fatal.
So unless I read this totally wrong, there’s no one company that puts this on, it’s more of a united front of journalists from all over? I’d really like to know how the deliberation works!
Like I cant see guys from fun-centered rags like Autopian and R&T coming to a close consensus with teams from places like Consumer Reports or Pop Mechanics.
I liked the C/D folks too. And some of the Automobile mag folks too. I do miss the good magazines. Wasn’t much of a MotorTrend guy, but they had their fans.
Consumer Reports had one kind of snarky writer who managed to get some stuff past the editors. I remember laughing out loud when one writer wrote that the spoiler on some early 70s Mustang was so effective that it shut the trunk lid at a standstill. THAT was classic.
Great question! Car of the Year jurors vote on vehicles they’ve driven over the past year, first by generating a shortlist, then with detailed ballots containing scores for everything from value to infotainment usability, all within the context of each vehicle’s peers. KPMG oversees the whole process, so while it’s possible to get a hunch based on what various journalists have liked over the past year, even we don’t know the winners until February.
Is there winter testing involved?
Are there regional tests? (testing bumpers a la Montreal street parking, how well the vehicle tracks on 800km of long flat Saskachwan roads with significant sidewinds)
And is there a regional-pick, or is all the testing done out of a Toronto suburb, and assumed the rest of the country is all the same?
Yeah, eh?
Serious question: assuming there’s some route you’ll be driving these cars through, how much does more spirited driving come into consideration with judgment?
Silly question: which car is the best for eating a plate of road trip poutine? 😛
Whichever one will make it to Québec
Spirited driving is definitely considered, sometimes within the nature of a vehicle if it’s a performance car and sometimes just in the context of emergency handling. There’s an autocross course at TestFest open to everything from the Elantra Hybrid up to the Lexus LX700h as a chance to experience what would be illegal and irresponsible to do on the public highway.
What’s the rules for eligibility?
Any new vehicle on sale over the course of a given year is eligible, but voting journalists need to have actually driven it in that timeframe.
Well every car mentioned is a car company from another country. Is there a Canadian Car Manufacturer, and what qualifies as a Canadian Car of the year?
Are there any Canada-only cars this year? Cars you get but we don’t
We got the Yellow Prius finally, however the color is locked behind top trims, which for me usually have “features” I don’t want (in this case larger wheels with shorter sidewall tires and power seats).
This is the problem with every manufacturer I’ve been interested in. You want a heated steering wheel? Must get stupid tire package! You want better seating? Must get stupid tire package! You want sunroof? Must get stupid tire package!
That’s a good question. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any specific models right now, but Kia will sell the EV5 crossover and PV5 van in Canada soon.