2025 CarsAwards – Judges & Categories

South Africa’s definitive motoring awards programme, the Cars.co.za Awards – sponsored by Absa, is gearing up for its 8th season. To kick things off, the organisers have announced the judges and categories for this year’s #CarsAwards.

“We believe that the ultimate measure of success for our Awards programme is its potential to impact consumer behaviour,” says Hannes Oosthuizen – the project manager of the 2025 Cars.co.za Awards.

“With this in mind, we re-evaluate just about every facet of the Awards structure and systems every year to make sure it remains in tune with market shifts, consumer demands, media consumption and more.”

The keen observers will notice that the word “Consumer” has been dropped from the naming.

“There is a very simple reason for this,” says Oosthuizen. “The word impacts the sizing of the type where we apply our Awards logo to billboards, for example, and with it removed the visibility of our logo will increase significantly. It furthers our pursuit of greater impact and making it easier for consumers to recognize the best cars in the market, where we publicise them.”

The #CarsAwards – as it is widely referred to on social media – is about much more than just handing over trophies to carmakers in February 2025. It’s a 6-month long project that is designed to inform potential car buyers about the vehicles that should appear on their shortlists. Importantly, it also gives consumers a say in the results.

The semi-finalists in each of the 13 categories will be announced on Friday 13 September.

Watch the highlights video of the 2023/24 #CarsAwards – sponsored by Absa

An awards programme that helps the consumer

“It is important to note the #CarsAwards differs from other awards programmes in several key aspects,” says Oosthuizen. “Firstly, the consumer can get directly involved, by telling us about their experiences with the vehicles they own, including the after-sales service they’ve received,” he adds. Data collection for this important aspect of #CarsAwards has already begun, in partnership with Lightstone Consumer.

In the final round of judging, the inputs of actual car owners account for 50% of a finalist vehicle’s score. “This is a crucial aspect, because while we can rely on motoring- and other specialist journalists to evaluate the products by testing them, they can’t judge what it’s like to live with a car – owner feedback is equally important,” he explains.

Categories aligned with market hot-spots

Another key difference is that the #CarsAwards doesn’t only consider and reward models that have been launched in the past year… and it’ll be no different for the 2025 Cars.co.za Awards – sponsored by Absa.

“These awards are really for the consumer,” Oosthuizen says. “For that reason, all cars on the market are in the running, provided they have been launched locally by 1 September 2024 and comply with the various categories’ criteria. We have tweaked the 13 categories of the 2025 Cars.co.za Awards to be even better aligned with where consumers are shopping,” he says.

The biggest change this year is the introduction of a second bakkie (pick-up) category. “South Africans love double-cab bakkies, but the price range from the most affordable to the top-end is vast, and so we wanted to introduce a fair way of including almost all of them,” Oosthuizen explains.

“As a result, the new Leisure Double Cab category is for automatic, four-wheel drive double-cabs below R750 000, while a new category called “Ultimate Double Cab” caters for vehicles above R750 000.”

Another significant change can be found near the bottom-end of the market, in terms of price.

“Not so long ago the so-called B-Segment of hatchbacks was one of the most popular in the market, with all the major brands competing for sales.

“However, in recent years the increasing popularity of cheaper crossovers and even cheaper hatchbacks produced in India have eroded what seemed like a mainstay of the market,” Oosthuizen adds.

Consequently, the #CarsAwards categories have been streamlined at the lower end of the market. The Entry-Level Hatch category has been replaced by the Budget Car category with a raised price ceiling of R300 000. Importantly, the category now includes any body type of vehicle, not only hatchbacks.

Meanwhile, the new Compact Hatch category now stretches from R300 000 to R500 000 and merges the previous Budget Hatch and Compact Hatch categories from previous years.

The third major change is in South Africa’s ever-popular Adventure SUV category, where the requirement for 7 seats has been dropped and the price cap removed.

“The thinking here is that we want to shift the focus to dual-road capability. South Africans are passionate about their 4x4s, and we want to find and award the best in the market. The off-road test component of this category will therefore become more important,” Oosthuizen says.

As before, the 14th and most prestigious category is Brand of the Year. “This is a really special award and 100% based on consumer feedback gained from our Ownership Satisfaction Survey, and also incorporating market share growth and resale data.

Timelines

As before, there are 4 phases to the #CarsAwards process.

September 2024: The Cars.co.za extended editorial team meets in Cape Town and debates all vehicles in the South African new vehicle market, within the defined categories and against the category criteria. All vehicles launched by 1 September 2024 will be considered. The top 5 contenders in each category are determined by consensus and not a secret vote to ensure rigorous analysis and debate. The 5 semi-finalists will be announced on Friday, 13 September 2024.
October 2024: The same Cars.co.za extended editorial team meets in Cape Town and votes on the vehicles in the individual categories to determine the finalists (3 per category).
4-5 November 2024: The 39 finalist vehicles (3 per category, 13 categories) of the 2025 Cars.co.za Awards are tested back-to-back at Gerotek in Gauteng.
February 2025: Announcement of all winners.

Respected, influential judges

In building the judging panel, the goal was to achieve a balance of motoring expertise (particularly in the first 2 phases of the programme, which determine the finalists) and respected non-motoring, highly analytical media professionals.

“It is absolutely crucial that motoring journalists’ opinions are supplemented by those of non-motoring media professionals, who, in many ways, represent the consumer at the test days,” explains Oosthuizen.

“As these Awards are designed to be of maximum benefit to the consumer, it is also critical that as many South Africans as possible know about the results,” says Oosthuizen.

“Our panel of judges has been selected with that in mind, and consequently you will find a mix of new and traditional media, print, broadcast and social media specialists,” he explains.

The judges for the 2025 Cars.co.za Awards are: