DETROIT – The Chevrolet Bolt electric car, Honda Ridgeline pickup truck and Chrysler Pacifica Minivan are named the 2017 North American Car, Truck and Utility Vehicle of the Year at the North American International Auto Show here.
The relatively modestly priced Bolt EV beat out two lavishly appointed and beautifully designed luxury flagship sedans, the Genesis G90 and Volvo S90.
The Honda Ridgeline won over Ford’s burly but sophisticated F-Series Super Duty and the Nissan Titan, a traditional fullsize pickup available with a long list of options and an interior nicer than those of many luxury cars. The Ridgeline is a smaller, more car-like personal-use pickup with advanced user-experience features, including a pickup box fitted with speakers that turn it into a giant boom box.
The Utility of the Year is a new award for 2017 designed to separate pickups and commercially oriented trucks from enormously popular CUVs and minivans.
Jaguar’s F-Pace, the luxury automaker’s first CUV and the beautifully designed and engineered Mazda CX-9 were the other two finalists in the Utility category the Chrysler won.
The awards honor excellence in innovation, design, safety, performance, technology, driver satisfaction and value. Initiated in 1994, they are judged by about 60 professional automotive journalists from the U.S. and Canada who work for magazines, television, radio, newspapers and websites.
Jurors evaluate dozens of new vehicles that went on sale this year to determine the finalists.
The process of selecting the Car, Truck and Utility Vehicle of the year starts in June by identifying vehicles eligible for the awards. It includes three rounds of voting.
The voting for finalists and winners is tallied by accounting firm Deloitte & Touche.
